press
2005 article on Susanne Brokesch -emerald stars
susanne brokesch
I was born in Vienna, Austria, became an electronic musician and writer and moved to New York, where I am still working. I released three cds (sharing the sunhat, so easy, hard to practice, and emerald stars) and wrote the soundtrack for the gangart - curated "Transmodernity" opening exhibition of the Austrian Cultural Forum in NYC.
(gangart is German for pace.)
I was awarded the Austrian SKE Jahresstipendium scholarship in 2003 for pop- and improvising composers.
I compose music for art shows, radio plays, movies and documentaries. I write poems, prose, research papers and articles.
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the human factor
I was born in Austria during the 1970s. When I was a little girl, I walked through the streets of Vienna with my neighbor, who took it upon herself to be my babysitter for free, for my parents both had to work. I remember asking her about Viennese veterans we saw here and there: men, maybe in their late fifties, walked past us with amputated legs and scarred forearms – old injuries they had suffered during WWII.
The Austrian government, burdened by the historic trauma of the rise and fall of National Socialism, invested decades of education and social culture development to process, prevent and counteract any trends towards another Holocaust and when I was older, I had learned about what really happened in WWII, I had visited the Auschwitz Museum where my friend and I had run out of its little documentary movie theatre. We were both crying our hearts out over the Holocaust. How did an empire and its military ever get to the point of condemning people to die in concentration camps?
Born in the 1940s, my parents had gone through post-war food shortages and minimal public education before they fell right into the Austrian working class, which was padded by superior benefits in health care, maternity leave and holidays – secured by the genius of post-war politicians in an attempt to heal an entire generation broken by war.
When I was old enough to engage in political conversations with grown-ups around me, I noticed anger about a new generation of veterans. This time around, their skin was brown, their German was heavy, broken by their struggle in pronouncing consonants the way their mother tongue would have dictated. I could not grasp how angrily grown-ups were able to disregard the human factor in an immigrant’s existence.
My parents would work until they had reached official retirement age and by that time, Austria’s political landscape had moved away from the securement of benefits to the securement of European borders from the influx of immigrants and refugees.
I went to Slovenia to interview Roma leaders and local police leaders for a research paper. My qualitative research took place on the line of conflict (resolution) where a minimally institutionalized group of Slovenian Roma met their governmental institution, e.g. the local police force. The interesting aspect of our research consisted of the field perspective we documented. We observed the meeting point between civilians and police – we recorded interactions which would set the stage for future encounters and expectations. Today, in an attempt to capture more authenticity, I would also mention the poetry book I received from a Roma community leader as well as the teddy bear in police uniform I was gifted by the Police Department.
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During times of climate change, artificial intelligence (AI), and a continuing strong global-scale digital focus among primary actors in international politics, it remains important that governments do not lose focus on the importance of their multicultural and social justice competencies: fruitful resource provisions in support of the people - the human factor in politics-is not only an idea, it is a work in progress, a collaboration between governmental actors and the people they serve-no matter whether we are migrants, the underserved, or part of the social middle ground.
shallow blues:
As migrants enter entirely unfamiliar chapters in their lives, I remember a great number of vulnerabilities: identity confusion, financial strife, loss and grief, unchecked domestic violence, rootlessness, language barriers, and more.
My poetry advocates for empowerment, authenticity, awareness, and self reflection.
I narrate the personal conflict within inner city generations of the social middle ground. Searching for a sense of control, for healthy agency, confronting landlords about rising rents, rejecting how friends and families are being torn apart, how communities are alienated into cocoons on the move away from the more or less affluent other. In a struggle to survive, wages will not match the financial demands of a gentrified playing field, a push into suburbs pulls apart the existing gap between our personal and professional lives.
A gaming culture term “in real life (irl)” gains momentum within the criminal justice context. I focus on how incredibly challenging it is to overcome crises without a provider system of sufficient multicultural and social justice competencies.
Yet, the effort to learn from our mistakes, to make healthy choices, to set realistic goals will set the tone for us to achieve meaningful success and to fulfill our dreams.
