In the volunteer editorial team, Volunteers for Chemnitz 2025 publish reports on their experiences, assignments and adventures around the European Capital of Culture.
Heidi lived and worked in Chemnitz for many years. She is interested in art, culture, languages and music. From 1990 onwards, she often travelled to English-speaking countries and wrote to friends from there. Heidi has been a volunteer for the European Capital of Culture Chemnitz since April 2025.
This exciting project "two towns - a performative audio walk" gives the old format of a city walk a new twist. What can you imagine?
The topic "What do people experience and feel today in public spaces in the cities of Coventry and Chemnitz" was explored in advance. With great empathy, texts were written in German and English in Chemnitz and Coventry. These stories, presented as if in a theatre play, were recorded in roles. Many actors from both cities took part. The participants listened to the texts via headphones during the walk.
However, the scenario was even more impressive. Caro from Chemnitz and Sinéad from Coventry were in costume and appeared from a distance again and again during the walk along the Chemnitz, over bridges, in the city park and back. This gave us the feeling of immersing ourselves in another time. And that's exactly what it was all about. The listener was transported back to the time of the industrial revolution, during which both cities developed strongly. They became very important in the production of all kinds of goods. This was also demonstrated to us in a performance in the former puppet theatre by the two actors with great acting commitment. Due to a mix-up in the venue, Caro and Sinéad met at a town meeting. They began to extol the virtues of their cities. It became clear that Coventry and Chemnitz were not much different. Both cities produced weaving and sewing machines, steam engines, buses, locomotives, motorbikes, bicycles, cars and textiles of all kinds.
A City Life song concluded the spectacle on the stage area of the lost place 'Puppet Stage'.
Celebrating city history in this way is great fun.
On the way back to Schmidtbank-Passage, the participants were confronted with the question: "What should an ideal public space be like?" There are no universal answers to this question. One suggestion was: "The best solutions are found by walking".
Finally, I would like to say why this urban project moves me. In the nineties of the last century, I visited our twin city of Manchester with the Deutsch-Britische Gesellschaft Chemnitz e.V. (Chemnitz German-British Society). On this trip, we had many encounters and conversations with friends from England. The destruction of Coventry Cathedral in the Second World War was also an event that we talked about intensively.
Since then, I have been following the associated history of the Cross of Nails as a symbol of reconciliation and peace.
Chemnitz is also part of this community. A Cross of Nails has stood in the Jacobi Church since 5 March 2025. This is a moving connection between the two cities of Coventry and Chemnitz.
