18/07/2025, 6:00 pm,

Theatre of the Oppressed. On the theory of a liberating theatre according to Augusto Boal. Lecture and discourse by and with Bernd Ruping and Benjamin Häring

, Stadthausgalerie Münster

At the centre of the exhibition Olho da Rua [Out Loud] is the film of the same name by Brazilian artist Jonathas de Andrade. For this film, de Andrade portrayed a temporary community of homeless people living in the city centre of Recife. He invited them to take part in a series of exercises inspired by the Theatre of the Oppressed, which was developed in the 1970s by the Brazilian theorist and activist Augusto Boal. Boal used the medium of theatre to combat oppression and exclusion. The Theatre of the Oppressed focuses on the political potential of the participants and on reshaping and changing their lives through active observation, collective brainstorming and unwritten expression.

The exhibition raises the question of what quality of publicity can still be created with art in times of spectacularisation and singularisation? What does it take for people to step out of their role as ‘spectators’ and “appear” (Hannah Arendt) in order to assume the active stance of a ‘spect-actor’ (Boal)?

In line with the Kunsthalle's aim of encouraging an engaged debate on public space and questions of art and the public sphere, Prof. Dr Bernd Ruping (Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences) will take both the installation by de Andrade exhibited in the Stadthausgalerie Münster and Boal's proposals as an opportunity to reflect with interested Münster residents on the relevance and necessity of a stricter understanding of the public sphere. He will be joined by improvisation artist and interaction lecturer Benjamin Häring (Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences) to playfully put to the test what can be heard and seen in a dialogue-based lecture that evening.