Tania Bruguera: Where Your Ideas Become Civic Actions (100 Hours Reading “The Origins of Totalitarianism”)

The artist and activist Tania Bruguera presents her performance Where Your Ideas Become Civic Actions (100 Hours Reading The Origins of Totalitarianism), a 100-hour reading of Hannah Arendt’s Elements and Origins of Totalitarianism at Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart. Artists, theorists, activists and visitors will read the political theorist’s magnum opus in the museum’s historic hall without interruption, day and night, from 7 pm on Wednesday, 7 February 2024 until 11 pm on Sunday, 11 February 2024. Bruguera’s first performance in Cuba in May 2015 led to her imprisonment by the Cuban authorities.

The historic hall of the Hamburger Bahnhof will be open to visitors free of charge for 100 hours without interruption: Cuban artist Tania Bruguera (born 1968) will read from Hannah Arendt’s (1906-1975) book ‘The Origins of Totalitarianism‘.  Arendt’s history and theory of totalitarianism, published in 1951, which deals with the complex issues of totalitarianism and imperialism, and anti-Semitism and racism, is still very relevant today. While reading (in German and English), Bruguera alternates with public figures, theorists from various fields of knowledge, artists from different disciplines and people from the museum’s neighbourhood to reflect together on power and violence, plurality and morality, politics and truth and to discuss the work with the audience.