Occupation of Stasi headquaters – action by EXTERRA XX group
On December 4, 1989, the women from EXTERRA XX and other civil rights campaigners were the first to occupy a Stasi headquarters: not in Berlin, not in Leipzig, but in Erfurt. The group EXTERRA XX founded in 1984 was made up of 27 actors, most of them female,[1] who worked in various projects and constellations until the mid-1990s. In their performances, fashion shows, and film projects, their artistic means were reduced to their own physical presence, forging an autonomous relationship with the space in which they worked.
Gabriele Stötzer was one of the initiators of the group that halted the destruction of the Stasi files. In 1976, whilst studying German and Art Education at the College of Education in Erfurt, Gabriele Stötzer was suspended from her course, placed on probation, and sent to work in a factory for showing solidarity with the leader of the student theatre group, who had been dismissed. Just several months later, because of her protest against the expatriation of the singer-songwriter Wolf Biermann, she was accused of state defamation and sentenced to one year’s imprisonment. Her experiences in the Hoheneck women’s prison were to change her existence in a radical way. “A young, married woman, who had recently been praised for being the best student and promoted to become a leader of the FDJ (Free German Youth), not only experienced having her already restricted freedom taken away from her: her body was also expropriated.”[2] This experience formed the basis from which, step by step, Gabriele Stötzer found her way to self-determination as a central point of artistic forms of expression. She moved into one of the houses occupied by punks and artists and organized readings, exhibitions, and artists’ festivals whose influence radiated into the social fabric of Erfurt.
In collaboration with the painter Cornelia Schleime and the artist Heike Stephan, Gabriele Stötzer carried out film projects in super-8 format[3], later working with the women from the group EXTERRA XX. The process of filming opened up a free and self-determined space for the artist, allowing her to explore the realms of the key topics: body – individuality – control – sovereignty, “filming represented a serious plunge into the public sphere, a test of courage, a sacrifice, a ritual … an entry into the self-organizing fraternity of the free arts and the free body, i.e. into the little piece of freedom that we were for ourselves, that we gave to ourselves.”[4] When the group made appearances at film festivals, Stötzer observed a “democratization process of ideas.”[5]
In their working relationship, the boundaries of authorship were dissolved. This complied with a strategy devised by Gabriele Stötzer to attain self-awareness through body therapy, with consequences for the artists’ political stance. From this group, a continually increasing commitment to civil rights evolved.
[1] Claus Löser, „Die Geister berühren“, in: Zwischen Ausstieg und Aktion: Die Erfurter Subkultur der 1960er, 1970er und 1980er Jahre ( Bielefeld: Kerber, 2014), p. 105.
[2] Ibid., p. 232.
[3] Ibid., p. 101.
[4] Gabriele Stötzer, “Filmen mit Frauen”, in: Karin Fritzsche and Claus Löser (eds.), Gegenbilder: Filmische Subversion in der DDR 1976–89, Berlin 1996, p. 77.
[5] Ibid., p. 78.
Date: 12 April 1989
Location: Erfurt
Participants: Gabriele Stötzer and the artist group EXTERRA XX