Political Art 'If I Were Chancellor ...'
A New York performance artist with a soft spot for Germany has arrived to help Germans sharpen their political thinking. Her method? She sits herself on a small stool in heavily trafficked areas in the big cities and for a few imagination-rich minutes gives average Germans all the power they could hope for. "If I were chancellor, I would..." That's not just the name of artist Sheryl Oring's project, but also the gift she offers -- the opportunity for every person to write down how they would change the nation if their chair were in the chancellory, rather than on a busy street corner.
"I would make sure everyone who learns a trade gets a job," 19-year-old Martin Graske told Oring in Berlin during a performance on Monday in the city's socio-economically diverse Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood. Graske is training to be a cook, but in Germany today, where almost 5 million people are unemployed, he's afraid he might end up spending more time in an unemployment office than behind a stove.
"I think it's not fair that people in the east still get paid less than people in the west, even though they do the same jobs," said music teacher Birgit Neubauer-Luebbe, referring to a controversial system of wage tariffs which was adopted 15 years ago when Germany reunited. People working in the east are paid a certain percentage less that people working the same jobs in the west, a policy which is being phased out slowly. Still, Neubauer-Luebbe would like to see some faster action. "I would put a stop to that."
Political Art in Berlin: If I Were Chancellor I Would...
Oring, dressed in the kind of outfit a 1950s stenographer would have worn -- pearls, a candy-red skirt suit with matching pumps and fingernails -- transcribes people's thoughts onto postcards via a shiny, click-clacking black typewriter. Using carbon paper -- a technique some of her youngest "chancellor candidates" have never seen -- she copies one card for herself. One day she hopes to make a book of them. The other card gets signed, postmarked, stamped and sent to the individual's chancellor candidate of choice.
But whom to choose? Germany's current chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, or on his conservative challenger, Angela Merkel? Oring asks people which politician they would like to mail the card to and then provides a handy pre-printed address label. As such, the project takes on a secondary dimension, operating as a man-on-the-street litmus test for how candidates are faring.
Merkel or Schröder?
After three days in Berlin, Oring said she has not come up with a clear winner. But that, she said, is not because people don't have definite ideas about whom they are voting for or the state of the nation.
"I would never vote for Merkel," said Ute Flecken, who, like Merkel, grew up in East Germany. "She has no real idea what is going on here."
Neubauer-Luebbe, also a former East German, said she would send her card to Merkel. "I don't know if I want her, but I think she'll be the next chancellor." Indeed, although the charismatic Schröder is more popular personally, polls show Merkel's Christian Democrats leading -- and here in Germany, the party is still more important than the candidate. Such candid responses are just what Oring is after.
Herself a former journalist and editor, with credits that include the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune and Germany's Die Welt and Deutsche Welle, Oring, 39, says too often "the mainstream press doesn't cover what people on the street really think." Her goal is to validate those thoughts -- particularly just before an election. On Tuesday, she packed up her portable office and headed for Hamburg. Her next stops include Cologne, Munich and Leipzig. The project ends on Aug. 28.
The idea for "If I were chancellor, I would..." began with her frustration over the European -- and particularly the German -- assumption that all Americans think alike. So, in 2004, the year of the US election, she began the I Wish to Say project, in which she traveled across the US asking people what they wanted to tell the president. She collected and sent more than 1,000 postcards. She was so pleased with the results that she wanted to expand it and Germany -- with its snap elections and a woman as a challenger -- seemed the perfect venue.
And so far, Germans have proven a good audience. Intrigued by her costume, "look," and her clacking typewriter, they approach to find out what she is doing. "I wasn't sure if the project would work as well here as in the States and I have been pleasantly surprised," she said.
For the most part, she says Germans are worried about unemployment, retirement and education. In America, many concerns focused on the Iraq war. Also in the States, "people are more willing to share their personal stories with me. At least so far," she says, "Germans have been more reserved."
