Getting Started and Seeing Things Through

KKA in discussion with federal school students’ spokesperson Pia Bauer and musician/artist Martin Skerwald alias “Skero” about cultural education, sur-vival strategy and the chances that emerge from failure.

KKA
Skero, you are involved in a wide variety of artistic activities – from graffiti to music to design. Is that a survival strategy, an attitude to life, or pragmatism?

Skero
It is definitely a survival strategy, but also, in a way, a maxim for living, in that I try to live by means of my talents. I am a trained graphic artist; I got involved with rap for awhile, and at some point I decided to just do everything that was offered to me as long as I was interested in it.

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KKA
In your song texts you encourage people to live out their own creativity – be it through graffiti or music or whatever. In your opinion, how can one bring creativity into so-called “non-creative” professions?

Skero
Yes, not everyone is necessarily creative; each person has different priorities and different things that make them happy. It makes me happy to give expression to my creativity and to realise my ideas. And thank heavens, continuity is one of my strengths – and that is something that gets you far. I think many people have ideas, but often the problem is that they don’t really believe in them and see them through.

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KKA
What role can or should be played by cultural education in the schools?

Bauer
I believe that much more is possible, especially also in the area of free projects and optional subjects. What I find especially exciting are theatre projects that promote intercultural understanding. Several such projects have been initiated in schools, and I believe that it would be terrific if persons involved in culture could do more in this direction.

Skero
Such programmes are already available. I don’t know whether this kind of activity should be intensified. I’m not so much in favour of always having someone tell you what you can do. Often it’s not such a bad idea if you just do something yourself. When I was in school, I was always drawing and decorating my desk. If you feel like doing something, you can do a lot yourself; you don’t have to always have things offered to you. When you work something out for yourself, it often has more value for you than if someone shows you what to do.

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KKA
The German youth researcher Klaus Hurrelmann has expressed his amazement over the optimism of children and young people, but he also emphasises that the fear of failure in life is more widespread in comparison to the Shell Study of 2002. What is your view, Skero? In one of your songs, you say: “Failing is not a disaster, unless you never try.”

Skero
Exactly. The song is about getting your rear in gear and getting something started. Often what happens is that once you start something, you’re already halfway there. You just have to hang in there for the other half. And it’s no disaster if you fail. In failing, you actually almost learn more than if you succeeded.

KKA
Hurrelmann also says that possibly the fear of failure might be the result of not hav-ing as many career possibilities...

Skero
Yes, the labour market situation is a factor, of course; it is quite different from what it was when I was in school. I think many people have a very pessimistic outlook in this respect. On the other hand, as a freelancer you have a lot more possibilities. Especially in the field of music or in other creative fields, you can do your own pro-motion extremely well through the Internet, something that would never have been possible in this form awhile ago. (...)

KKA
What do you think?

Bauer
When you’re preparing for your school-leaving examination you are definitely given the feeling that afterwards you’re going to have to fend for yourself. And that you can only achieve something if you really persevere; that you have to show initiative and that nothing is going to fall into your lap. You really have to have an idea, you have to do something that hasn’t been done before. I think there is a widespread fear of not being able to find that market gap, that possibility for success.

Skero
As a self-employed person, it really is extremely hard to have faith in your ideas and see them through. Many people need a “boss” in life, someone who stands behind them and tells them: do this, and now do that. (...) It is much harder, if you are on your own, to give yourself a push and tell yourself: okay, I have to get up early to-morrow, because I have to run after this crazy thing that nobody understands except me. That is extremely difficult.

Bauer
On the other hand, the optimism we were talking about doesn’t evolve when every-thing is going totally right. Then you just feel good. But that isn’t optimism. Optimism only comes when you say to yourself, OK, this is not the easiest situation, but even so: we’re having fun, we’re trying to do something.

KKA
Then again, young people today are being confronted with many difficulties, for ex-ample a pension system that will have to be maintained. Do you see conflict potential here?

Bauer
The demographic development is certainly of interest for young people. And I find it frightening that many of them no longer really have faith in our social system – sim-ply because the way things look now, when you do the calculations, you can see that it’s bound to break down at some point in the future. Young people today realise this. (...) There is no generation conflict at a personal level; we accept the older generations, but it’s hard to believe that the social system we have now can be sus-tained.

Skero
(...) I think it’s important, in any case, to make the social system sustainable. And I would like to see some clear signs from the parties that they are working on this. But of course it’s also obvious that the more older people we have, the more difficult it’s going to be to keep the health system going. But what adolescents definitely also fear is that there will be too few jobs or that the world will come to an end altogether – this is a kind of mood that, in a way, has been cultivated since 9/11. (...) The world is not going to end so easily. What could come to an end is humanity, if we don’t show ourselves worthy of this planet. 
 
KKA
Let’s talk about school: There are – especially in Vienna – some extremely heteroge-neous classes, as far as origin, religion and culture are concerned. A study¹  recently presented in the Austrian teachers’ magazine “Erziehung & Unterricht” identified a deep divide between pupils with Austrian parents and pupils with migration back-grounds. At the same time there is a general need for better communication and understanding. As a pupil yourself, how do you experience the sense of rapport – or lack of it – between young people with and without migration backgrounds?

Bauer
There is a certain amount of conflict potential. In some schools, the percentage of children with migration backgrounds is unbelievably high, sometimes several times higher than that of children of Austrian origin. The desire for better communication and understanding is definitely there. (...) And there are terrific initiatives in the schools, usually coming from dedicated teachers or associations, but there isn’t really a concept that answers the question of how to deal with the increasing number of pupils with migration backgrounds in the future. I haven’t yet heard any concept that offers a good approach for the future.

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Skero is a graffiti artist, designer and musician. He studied sculpture and painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and has been a member of the hip-hop group Texta since 1992. In 2009 his first solo album “Memoiren eines Riesen” (Memoirs of a Giant), which includes the hit song “Kabinenparty”, was released. Skero is the winner of the Austrian music prize Amadeus 2010 in two categories.

Pia Bauer attended the academic secondary school AHS St. Ursula in Vienna. In 2008/2009 she founded and served as editor-in-chief of the newspaper of school representatives at provincial level. In the school year 2009/2010 she was the provin-cial spokesperson of the representatives of academic secondary schools in Vienna as well as the federal school students’ spokesperson. In September 2010 she became the provincial chairperson of the Vienna Schools Students’ Union.

¹The study “Zusammen Leben Lernen in der Schule. SchülerInnen mit Migrationshintergrund in Österreich“ [Learning to Live Together at School. Pupils with Migration Backgrounds in Austria] by Edit Schlaffer was conducted for the Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture and appeared in “Erziehung & Unterricht“ 5-6/2010.