Looking back at life since 2020, there is fear, distance, the absence of bodies, and the loss of a concrete reality. Individuals became scattered to anonymous spots on maps. Students, teachers, freelancers, shop assistants, social workers, farmers, retired civil servants… We are participants of the Folk Memory Project, witnesses of the time of the pandemic, as well as survivors from the ups and downs of recent human history.
We gathered online. Individual witnesses led to the reconstruction of a community. The reading by a group of people, with each hailing from a different village, flows into a chorus of voices that form a life-saving ark. The memories and experience of ordinary people, as revisited in the Reading Virus theater, weave into a collective account in response to this time.
Reading Virus is a follow-up to Reading Hunger and Reading Father, the third installment of the Reading theater series by Caochangdi Workstation/the Folk Memory Project.
Concept: WU Wenguang, ZHANG Mengqi
Rehearsal Execution: ZHANG Mengqi
Creating & Performing: ZHANG Mengqi, LUO Luo, SHAO Yuzhen, WU Wenguang, HU Tao, GAO Ang, YU Shuang, DAI Xu, ZHANG Dun, LIU Tong, LIU Xiaolei, LIU Xiaoqian, LI Tianyi, WEN Xinyu, ZHOU Tiantian, PAN Qiurong, WU Andi, WANG Sisi, ZHOU Lei, LI Xinyue.
Screenings and keynotes on location are open to the general public. Tickets can be booked via the Künstlerhaus Mousonturm and DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum websites.