Flowing Borders
Symposium RanitzDialoge
29th August 2009
Not everything flows – that connects people.
Only flowing borders are not walls.
Ottensheim is situated beside the river. Near the mouth of the Rodl on warm summer weekends, Muslims hold their traditional family festivities. Not all the citizens of Ottensheim are favorably disposed to these lively gatherings; perhaps they’re reminded of the campfires of their own childhood, of activities that hardly have a place anymore in the thoroughly regulated course of everyday life and amidst a landscape that has been parceled, developed and designed.
Alternatively, more than 200 visitors will be getting together at the ferry station in Ottensheim for a reading of international literature in seven different languages.
Europe is so free and builds suspension bridges. Both within and without. Are the “languages of the great cultures” the only ones spoken by literature? The Danube flows through more. Its waters are those of many tributaries. And Ottensheim lies on the Black Sea, south of the Bohemian Woods. Where the flames of nationalistic discord and xenophobia are fanned, resigNation (Nestroy) is not the homeland of literature.
RanitzDrucke is a grant project that has been running for several years now. Poets from all the regions whose streams feed the great river and through which the great river flows are invited to Ottensheim to spend some time in town, on the riverbanks, in the outlying areas; to walk and explore; to read and to write. In RanitzDrucke, their texts are published by letterpress with woodcut illustrations.
Beginning in 2009, in addition to RanitzDrucke, a series of books entitled RanitzDialoge will appear. Four authors—two men and two women—will engage in a written dialog in which culinary pleasures and (riverside) landscapes will be among the topics that come up for discussion.
“Europafication” is moving forward at a rapid pace and the Austrian economy is successfully expanding eastward. Only people’s ignorance about their neighbors’ culture remains intact. The “East” is perceived as a threat in the minds of many. The RanitzDialoge can show how much there is that connects us, how much we have in common. It can make us curious about the stretches of terra incognita strewn across this continent.
To mark the 20th anniversary of Edition Thanhäuser and the 15th anniversary of RanitzDrucke, the 2009 symposium entitled “Flowing Borders” will be held in Ottensheim and atop Hamberg. Authors from many different lands who write in many different languages will be invited to converse about childhood. There’ll be literature, music, shared food and drink.
At the summit of the Puchenauer Taiding with its panoramic view as far as Linz, high above Kürnberger Forest and the Eferdinger Basin, Slavs and Bavarians negotiated their peaceful coexistence. It can be assumed that these meetings were by no means tedious affairs. “Flowing Borders” is pleased to be able to carry on this tradition.
Tributaries are a river’s mycelium –
What is foreign becomes riches of ones own.
Idea/Concept // Christian Thanhäuser
Organizers // Edition Thanhäuser and Linz09
Participants // Ludwig Hartinger, Beate Luger, Irmgard Thanhäuser
Christian Thanhäuser was born in 1956 in Linz, and currently lives in Ottensheim and in Schloß Waxenberg. He is a free-lance graphic artist (woodcuttings, drawings, etchings) and book printer. He has exhibited his work at one-man shows in Berlin, Bern, Budapest, Cesky Krumlov, Dornbirn, Feldafing, Feldkirch, Hannover, Landeck, Langenlois, Lech, Panitzsch, Linz, Ljubljana, Mattersburg, Ottensheim, Passau, Puchenau, Rankweil, Rauris, Rohrbach, Saarbrücken, Salzburg, Schlanders, Speyer, Tirana, Vienna, Wetzlar, Wilhering and Zwickledt. He is a recipient of the Theodor Körner Prize and the Ottensheimer Culture Prize.
In 1989, with encouragement from Austrian author H. C. Artmann, he founded Edition Thanhäuser which has since then brought out more than 60 publications featuring authors from Albania, Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, England, Germany, Guatemala, Hungary, Iraq, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Rumania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland and the USA.
He operates his own Gutenbergische book and graphics workshop featuring 500 type cases and several hand presses. He has been singled out for recognition with the V. O. Stomps Prize of the City of Mainz, and awards for Austria's most beautiful books and dust jackets.
