Structural Break and the Future

In our neighborhood meetings and conversations over the fence the centuries-long mining tradition in Mansfeld Land almost always comes up. Here the harsh conditions of the mines and of work in the mills as well as the moments of joy and terror are poignantly described. Old mining equipment, rail wagons and vestiges from the crucibles with clumps of raw copper are lovingly presented as relics at numerous memorial sites in the region. Marching bands and fanfare corps are as much a part of the folklore as the enduring coarse celebrations of the so-called “Pentecost Clubs” in Mansfeld villages. A ride on the Mansfeld Mining Museum Railway is a special experience. On the tracks of the old mills copper is no longer transported. In their silence the brake blocks on cargo trains destined for all corners of the EU are replaced. Students of geography commissioned for Unter uns recently asked visitors to the Hettstedt market: Do you have anything to do with mining? Almost no one said yes. Mansfeld without mining is the present and probably the future as well. The conversation with the Hettstedt native Marcus Böick (an expert on the privatization of socialist enterprises after German reunification) and with artists featured in Unter uns focuses on the aftermath of the dramatic structural break that Mansfeld experienced with the decline of mining in the 1990s. It looks at both the need to grieve for this loss and the seventh sense for the invention of the future that is perhaps uniquely characteristic of Mansfeld.