In "Empty City", andpartnersincrime juxtapose the empty houses of Kassel with the stories of those who no longer live in them. The people, the evicted, the homeless. Through interviews with citizens of Kassel who are acutely threatened by eviction and displacement, they bring their experiences to the stage. For the performance, andpartnersincrime teamed up with Raphael Knipping and Michael Trammer from the journalist collective Freelance Underground to conduct investigative research into the connection between vacancies and homelessness.
In a series of filmed interviews, the artists’ collective approaches the personal stories of Kassel citizens who have either lost their homes because they were evicted due to economic hardship, who were threatened with such an eviction at a certain point in their biography, or who have been living without a permanent residence for some time. On stage, the two investigative journalists Max and Nika shed light on the structural background of speculative vacancies and a “second wave” of gentrification that is currently reaching the city of Kassel. During their research, they come across more and more controversial cases and dubious strategies of real estate and investment funds, as well as public housing construction companies. But not everything they discover on stage is fiction…
andpartnersincrime is an association of media and performance artists under the artistic direction of Eleonora Herder. Based on research into current social phenomena and conversations with people and journeys to places affected by these phenomena, they create site-specific, multimedia performances, actions, installations and sound works that invite the audience to draw their own conclusions from the research. andpartnersincrime has realized works at the Staatstheater Wiesbaden, the mousonturm in Frankfurt and the Tatr Ochoty in Warsaw, among others.