Intertale Stop 8: Schmiede/Hallein

Last week I spent a few days at the Schmiede, located in the former foundry of the ancient saltworks of Hallein. Here, every September for around ten days some 150 artists get together to work along side each other. With a view to collaborate, - makers, dancers, writers, thinkers performers and other Smiths find themselves a space in the giant in industrial terrain of 20 rooms of 6000 sqm. I found myself a little table with my red cloth overlooking and overstitching other makers. Meeting old artsy friends and making new ones.

My mission was to talk to its founder/director Rüdiger Wassibauer to find out how it all came about? How Schmiede developed from a festival to a unique giant lab of creative exchange and ideas? A fountain of thought, ideas and new questions entered my notebook, always asking how to deal with complexity?

One of the things that especially interested me from those conversations was the idea of bridging language. With English being such a dominant language in arts communication, I often on my journey felt it was neo-colonial attitude that fails to grasp the nuances of meaning. But then who am I to talk - in many of my visits (not here in Hallein of course) such as in Broumov or Slanič I was glad we had English to resort to.

I also designed a little Walkshop entitled: ‘Is there such a Thing as Bad Weather? A Walk in the Rain’. Surprisingly nobody showed up. I know, I should have been called ‘A Walk in the Floods’. So, I took this year’s title SLOTH seriously and just walked over to the über-delicious Konditorei Café Braun.

Hallein itself has 20.000 inhabitants situated in the shadow of its mountains and in the shadow of the glam city of Salzburg. Traditionally a worker’s town it is now a city in transition which has moved like the rest of much of Austria towards tourism as its economic base. ‘Kitsch-country’ as Rüdiger says (not my words).