Classroom 2021/22
Where are you really from?
Vanessa Vu and guests
Most people answer questions about their background geographically – but is it really the place that shapes us? When someone asks »Where do you come from?«, very few mention the small apartment, unemployed parents or clothes and vocabulary that immediately reveal to everyone what kind of background they are from. Why do we find it so difficult to address financial circumstances and to re-evaluate and perhaps readjust our relationships with each other from this point of view? Is it the longing of a liberal, performance-driven post-war generation to consider a life from one’s birth alone, without any of the family baggage that can provide an advantageous start or, conversely, act as a lifelong hindrance? In this new monthly series of talks, the journalist Vanessa Vu tackles these questions and takes a closer look at the various social milieus of this country via life stories – exploring their undiscussed niches, comparing and contrasting them – and tries to perhaps come to understand herself a little better as a result. Journalist Vanessa Vu invites you to exchange ideas in her childhood bedroom with its bunk bed, mattress, old cathode ray tube TV and lots of plastic – after spending a long time in an asylum seekers’ hostel, this signalled the beginning of a social advancement.
