La Strada in Graz

A city fountain becomes a sea of wishes

Actress Susanne Lipinski eavesdrops on the Graz fountain

(Bild: Roland Renner)

This year's edition of the La Strada festival opens in Graz on Friday. The Mezzanin Theater will also be there, working with aXe Graz to make the fountain on Karmeliterplatz speak and sing and transform it into a wishing well.  

It all started with a report on Ö1. Musician Patrick Dunst from aXe Graz heard about a research project off the coast of Sicily that was recording all the sounds of the Mediterranean in order to document "sound pollution". "Patrick had a poetic thought and an idea for an artistic project," says Natascha Grasser from the Mezzanin Theater, who brought Dunst on board for the project: "Anyone who listens so closely to the sea should actually be able to hear the voices of the refugees who swim through with their longings and all too often drown."

If the water could speak
The duo wanted to explore this connection between water, fate and longing: "On the one hand, we got the livestream of the sounds of the Mediterranean. On the other hand, there are wishing wells in many cities where you throw coins and hope for the fulfillment of a wish. We asked ourselves what would happen if these bodies of water could speak and tell us about people's wishes."

Director Natascha Grasser

(Bild: Clemens Nestroy)

With "The Wishing Well", they have created an interactive installation from all these ideas: "To do this, we held countless workshops with children and young people, senior citizens and refugees to talk about their wishes and collect them," explains Grasser. "On the other hand, we created a website especially for the project so that anyone who is interested can send us their wishes via voice message."

Constantly changing audio collage
All these wishes are processed together with the sounds of the Mediterranean and compositions by Dunst to create a constantly changing audio collage, which can only be heard in the fountain on Karmeliterplatz in Graz - either by holding your ear to the water or by sitting at one of the listening stations at the fountain, where you can immerse yourself in the sound of this sea of wishes. The installation also reacts to the movements of the people on site.

Musician Patrick Dunst

(Bild: P. Dunst)

"It's an invitation to pause, listen and reflect on your own desires and the desires of others," says Grasser. "We have deliberately tried to reach as many sections of the population as possible in order to make a broad spectrum of desires audible."

The installation is open daily from Saturday to Saturday from 10 am to 6 pm. From July 31 to August 3, there will also be performances on site: actress Susanne Lipinski will bring selected underwater wishes to the surface at 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. and will also perform a wish text by Fiston Mwanza Mujila.