Sturm of Love

Sonya Schönberger’s book Sturm of Love – Brüche (2022) is based on conversations with people who have either experienced infidelity in romantic relationships or have themselves been unfaithful. It opens up an intimate and uncomfortable space filled with stories of betrayal and loss, of relationships falling apart, of parenthood as a trap, and of the return of traditional gender roles within supposedly modern ways of life.

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Sonya Schönberger is a Berlin-based artist whose practice deals with biographical ruptures against the backdrop of political or social upheaval. The source of her artistic exploration are the people themselves, who tell about it in biographical conversations. This is how some archives were created, but also already existing, partly found archives flow into her work. In 2018, she initiated the “Berliner Zimmer,” a long-term video archive based on the stories of people in Berlin.

Anne Ratte-Polle studied acting at the Rostock University of Music and Drama. After her first engagements in Cottbus, Düsseldorf, and Hanover, Ratte-Polle has lived and worked primarily in Berlin since 2005, where she has performed on the stages of the Deutsches Theater, the Maxim Gorki Theater, and the Hebbel am Ufer. In addition, she was a member of the permanent ensemble at the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz for several years, where she appeared in productions directed by Frank Castorf, René Pollesch, Dimiter Gotscheff, and Herbert Fritsch. She has also appeared in various feature films and played the lead role in the first German Netflix Original series, “Dark,” directed by Baran bo Odar.

The reading and discussion will be in German.