Literature scholarship 2026

Welcome to Chemnitz! What's your first impression?

Judith Kuckart: Cold.


Why?

Judith Kuckart: Because of the weather, but actually more because of the similarity to the area I come from: The edge of the Ruhr area.
An awful lot was destroyed there too during the war. You have to find your way between these cold houses that are sometimes too high for people.

Burkhard Peter: I was here two years ago. Chemnitz is where my mother was born and lived; she lived in Wiesenstraße as a child and fled in March 1945. My second impression was that Chemnitz is not as accessible as I had thought. As a photographer, I am dependent on human contact. But I've been here for three weeks now and it's getting better. I'm making contact more quickly when I'm taking photos.


Yes, people here are said to be somewhat closed off. But doesn't that also make literary work exciting?

Judith Kuckart: Of course, closed-minded people are much more interesting than those who always tell you the same stories at the dinner table.


You split the scholarship equally. What are your plans?

Judith Kuckart: The day after the launch event at the Neue Sächsische Galerie, we had an appointment at the Agricola School. We are doing a writing and photography project with a class currently in eighth grade and the active support of the teacher. Burkhard will be photographing cityscapes with the pupils and I
have spontaneously said that - shall I spoil it? - someone disappears in this city. That would be the fictional plot. The pupils want to act faster than the police and find the missing person. This sets a joint writing process in motion.</p

<p>Burkhard Peter: My approach, as I'm interested in urban landscapes anyway, is to take photographs around the Reitbahn neighbourhood, where my mother grew up. And so the connection is with the visible and the non-visible, with photography and literature.

<p>Judith Kuckart: And the visible and the invisible are of course very well catered for in disappearance.

Burkhard Peter: And to make today's Chemnitz visible, I also create portraits in the urban space. So it's about the urban stage and how it presents itself today.


But that's not a purely architectural theme.

Judith Kuckart: Architecture is never just an architectural theme. Architecture is the stone dress in which we humans have to live. Architecture is therefore an ethical and social issue.</p

<p>Burkhard Peter: It is precisely these upheavals that are so clearly visible here in Chemnitz.</p

<p>Judith Kuckart: That's the only thing that's interesting: when something moves. There are hardly any cities less interesting than Zurich and Rome. It's terrible when there's nothing left to discover.


Are you continuing to write your novel here in Chemnitz?

Judith Kuckart: No, it's not going anywhere. What I'm trying to do here is actually "non-professional" in the first step: I'm going to take photos, but not for the sake of taking photos. I will photograph windows in all parts of the city and turn these windows into a narrative occasion.

Burkhard Peter: That will feed into our final presentation. We are planning a production with music, text and photos. And we would like to organise an exhibition with photos and text fragments, for which a room is still missing.


You are coming the year after the Capital of Culture. Are you sad about it?

Judith Kuckart: Not at all. It's an old theatre principle: the best scenes are always created before or after a big event. Like weddings, for example: the night before and the night after is the exciting part.

<p>Burkhard Peter: The Chemnitz Art Collections, for example, are outstanding. Especially in the area of New Objectivity. I bought a season ticket for the Gunzenhauser Museum. And then there's the NSU Documentation Centre and the Schocken department stores' with the Archaeology Museum.
I think Chemnitz is a city of culture to a surprising degree.


Are there any impulses that you would like to leave behind for the people of Chemnitz?

Judith Kuckart: What I would like: If our storytelling and the storytelling of the pupils, whether in pictures or words, creates a poetic layer over what you think you have known for a long time. We don't come to Chemnitz with our legs apart and a clever message. We are just guests here.