HALF TIMES

Football unites different people with different realities of life in the stadium, in front of screens or at public screenings: Origin, language and class do not seem to matter among football fans. Poetry in the form of fan chants, fan scarf slogans or stadium songs plays an important role in this special get-together. The Brechtfestival in Augsburg, Burg Hülshoff - Centre for Literature and the Günter Grass-Haus are bringing football and football fans together with the HALBZEITEN project under the motto of the UEFA EURO 2024 in Germany "United by Football. United in the heart of Europe", they are bringing football and poetry together.

With HALBZEITEN, the three literary institutions want to utilise the power of football and create a space to encounter each other without making differences invisible. It's about understanding, just like football. Because when the language we have learnt no longer knows what to do, it is sport or an artistic language that enables us to express the unspeakable. Poetry workshops for teenagers and young adults will take place at the three project locations and will come together for the project finale in Berlin. There will also be a poetry half-time programme in which poets from different languages will pass the ball to each other. All of the poetry developed as part of the project deals with the phenomenon of half-time - the in-between.