The Attentive Stranger. Mats Staub – Gespräche & Langzeitprojekte

When did you stop being a child? What happened when you were 21 years old? How many people have you fallen in love with? How many friends do you have you can rely on?

Over the course of twenty years of artistic practice, Mats Staub has developed his very own working methods and created formats that are located between theatre and visual arts, journalism and literature. The Attentive Stranger places these projects, which have developed over a long period of time and on different continents, in relation to each other and to the social, historical and psychological contexts they touch on outside of the arts: With seven in-depth conversations made for this book, an essay on the practice of biographising, with questions, lists, images and stories from twelve long-term projects.

The composition of this monograph reflects Mats Staub's way of working: Attentive listening, careful editing and collaborating with many different people. This allows for a plurality of voices, which is also a plurality of languages – all texts are printed in their original language and have been translated into German / English. Like Mats Staub's work, this book invites the audience to themselves perform the movements of biographical recollection and narration.

What do I know about my grandparents’ lives? What deaths and births have shaped my life? Who did I use to be and am no longer? What do I want to become still?