Laura Klatt
bangaloREsident@Sandbox Collective
Laura Klatt, born 1984, lives in Berlin. Following her training as a youth worker and educator and after a sustained period in Mexico, she started working for the GRIPS Theater, where she was employed from 2009 until 2015. Her work consisted of overseeing the GRIPS' productions as well as developing plays with teenagers and doing after-school work related to theatre with teenagers and adolescents. The inter-disciplinary theatre project “Schatzsuche” (treasure hunt), which she co-developed and implemented, was awarded the 2011 “Kinder zum Olymp” prize.
As part of her work, she also created and developed the open stage format BONUSTRACK, which allows professionals and teenagers to meet within a distinctive and open space. Through co-operative projects like “kulturhappen” she enabled groups like SLOW FOOD YOUTH to collaborate closely with theatres.
Laura Klatt was part of the creative team of the renowned “berliner kindertheaterpreis, 2015”, a prize awarded by GRIPS and GASAG. She also helped build up the campaign MY RIGHT IS YOUR RIGHT, through which Berlin cultural institutions support non-citizens with their political agendas.
While working at GRIPS, Laura Klatt also studied cultural and media management at the University of Music and Theatre Hamburg. In her BA thesis (“Why is there no obligatory theatre visit? If everyone goes to the theatre, things will change!”), as well as in her work in general, her focus lies on the question of how people can be brought closer to theatre and in which ways they use and enjoy it. She understands theatre as a public space, in which a heightened awareness is created through seeing plays and through being on stage.
Since 2009, she has facilitated various workshops with authors as part of the “International Literature Festival Berlin” and the “Poesiefestival”.
In 2015, Laura Klatt received a scholarship for the International Forum, which is part of the Theatertreffen. In the same year, she became self-employed with the artists' collective Mixed Pickles. Mixed Pickles is focused on the production of documentary films, the development of multi-disciplinary formats and the organisation of events supporting inter-cultural dialogue. Mixed Pickles offers space for encounters between different people and disciplines. It is a place for research, experiments, trial and error, and utopias, as well as hard facts and images. It focuses on the here and now, without neglecting the consequences of our actions. What is possible results from the people who gather. Through revealing grey areas and inspecting the apparently routine, things that are often overlooked are exposed and become the centre of attention. Further, it is an attempt to deconstruct the mechanisms of prejudice, as well as breaking up stereotypes, so that people can be shown in their full spectrum. It is about risk and critical perspectives without moralising or being destructive. To celebrate the unique as well as the diverse is Laura Klatt's and Mixed Pickles' motivation.
