Writing nature - between art and commitment in times of ecological crisis

The authors and literary mediators Nora Deetje Leggemann, Ursula Seeger and Johann Reißer will read excerpts from their current literary projects, discuss the relationship between writing and environmental activism and talk about their experiences from the writing workshops of the event series natur : stadt : kultur, as part of which this evening takes place.

In her prose text “Land unner/Ruuche Frauen”, Nora Deetje Leggemann examines life on a North Sea island and creates a rough yet tender portrait of a natural landscape and its inhabitants through the ages from the perspective of several generations of women.

In the joint lyrical-graphic volume “GEHÄUSE - Zwölf Schleifen zwischen Zellen und Clouds” (2024) by Ursula Seeger and Johann Reißer, early private spheres proliferate, natural spaces become human settlements, houses peel themselves out of highly compressed pasts, concrete chasms gnaw their way through layered horizons. Animal structures and plant roots break through walls, circuits of decomposition emerge, speculative spheres, mycelium-like future landscapes.

Nora Deetje Leggemann is a freelance author and literary mediator living in Berlin. She studied literary writing at the German Literature Institute Leipzig and is a founding member of the association “Junges Literaturinstitut - Verein für Literaturvermittlung Leipzig”. She has received various awards for her writing, most recently a working grant for literature from the state of Lower Saxony in 2024. Her play “Am Rande des Orbits” is currently being performed at the Anhaltisches Theater Dessau. She is currently writing her first novel.

Ursula Seeger, born 1984 in Braunschweig, is an author, designer and art mediator and lives in Berlin. She studied at the Braunschweig University of Art and explores literary and artistic relationships between humans and non-human nature. She shows her work in readings, multimedia performances, anthologies and magazines. In 2021, she won 1st prize in the Scivias literature competition with a short story. In 2024, the volume “GEHÄUSE - Zwölf Schleifen zwischen Zellen und Clouds”, a collaboration with Johann Reißer, will be published.

Johann Reißer is an author, theater maker and lecturer and lives in Berlin. He publishes poetry, prose and intermedia works. He also works with performance groups and puts on his own plays, most recently “WÜSTE REGEN FLUTEN - eine klimatische Performance”. He has received numerous awards and scholarships for his artistic work, including the Berlin Senate Scholarship for the novel “Pulver”. The lyrical-graphic volume “GEHÄUSE - Zwölf Schleifen zwischen Zellen und Clouds”, created with Ursula Seeger, will be published in September 2024.

The project natur : stadt : kultur - Vielfalt erkunden in Stadt/Natur & Land/Wirtschaft invites you to approach natural spaces in and around Berlin in a diverse and creative way and to exchange ideas about ways to protect them. 

(PROGRAM IN GERMAN)