According to an invitation of priest Don Antonino Costa Berlin artist Kain Karawahn hold a speech in front of artists and art interested people in the church of San Vincenzo/Stromboli/Italy on 16th of November 2004 - translated simualtaneously by Barbara Engele-Utano
My name is Kain Karawahn and I do live in Berlin. I'm an artist, who expresses himself in many different disciplines like photography, video, theatre, music, performance and writing. Since more than 20 years my work is focused on cultural and artistic relationships between men and fire. In Germany there are books published on both, my artworks and my artistic-cultural-historic researches, which are on themes like fire and theatre, fire and literature, fire and sexuality etc.. I use to give lectures at universities, I use to collaborate artisticly with schools and I use to give workshops in kindergardens. I prefer to use artistic mediums to teach a cultural-maintaining manner of fire uses. For that purposes I collaborate with the fire department for developing playing methods of cultural fire education for kids. Also I do write on that topic for a national fire fighter magazine in Germany.
Since 1999 I do come to Stromboli once a year to realize artistic experiments in an unique atmosphere of an inhabited volcano, because this situation is worldwide unique. I don't come only on my own, I come with friends from all over the world. Each of them pays travel and accomodation by himself. What we don't have brings us here to take it back with us in inspiration and art. To me Stromboli represents not only a natural phenomenen, it is definitely a natural stage for cultural realizations. What the participants of the Feuersalon had created artisticly under strombolian conditions each year, was not only an inspiration to me, it has also enriched other people in the world too.
I speak very bad italian, but am I therefore a bad man? I speak much better german than most of the Strombolians but am I therefore a better man? I have to accept it if a Strombolian says that my italian is very bad but I do not feeloffended on that, because it is only his personal opinion about a work of mine, the art of speaking italian, which is definitely bad. Actually this is also the reason why I could not talk to almost any Strombolian for the last six Feuersalons on Stromboli.
