wir_hier is a media project that involves long-term detainees at a state prison in vienna, austria. the project team comprises beate goebel (artistic direction), laurent ziegler (photography/video), michael zagorski and markus raffelsberger (graphic design/animation), helmut prochart (webdesign/photography), maria pointner (costumes) and yvonne czermak (assistance).

wir_hier organizes acting workshops inside the prison and stages small theatre plays. it also produces audio plays, a dvd with performance work and it distributes a selection of art work printed on t-shirts and consumer bags. regular exhibitions since 2005 (photography/mixed media) and public lectures on any given situation seek to inform the public on the situation of inmates from different angles and perspectives and raise public awareness about prisons and social issues related to rehabilitation of prisoners.

the most recent theatre work was presented on march 8, 2007 at kosmos theater in vienna, austria. the play "wie man wird was man ist", written by lina loos around 1900, deals with social norms and restrictions woman had to deal with at the fin de siecle. the inmates rehearsed with professional actors inside the prison and contributed to the performance with a recorded voice over. the play was performed solely for the prison inmates prior to the premiere at kosmos theatre. an animated clip based on stills and original audio footage complemented the play and can be viewed here.

wie man wird was man ist (requires flash player)

in summer 2007 the so far latest working circle commenced, collaborating with male inmates on rap as a venue to express stories on their individual life. what began as an experiment with the aim to produce text related work turned out to be a major undertaking. furious steez joined the project with his professional input as a vienna based rapper. r.i.p. rappers in prison was given birth and in total four songs were recorded in september 2007 at das kw korak & weninger studios. various media sources (the austrian public service broadcaster orf, der standard, augustin, fm4 radio network) featured the project, hoanzl records agreed to produce and distribute the work of rappers in prison with a limited edition of 500 vinyl records. click here to listen to r.i.p.

ich habe lust (requires quick time or real player)

our collaboration is supported by the federal chancellary of austria and the vienna city council. wir_hier received the sozialmarie award 2007 to honour innovative and creative social projects and went 4th place at the annual 'innovationspreis der freien kulturszene wien'. a larger selection of photo work is available here.

more detailed information at http://www.wirhier.at.