Book Talk: Milo Rau's "Reclaiming the Future"

Book Talk: Milo Rau's "Reclaiming the Future" 

The future is bleak. What can we do, what must we do? Milo Rau about standstill, protest and commitment. 

Director and writer Milo Rau will discuss his latest book, Reclaiming the Future, a republished essay from the Zurich Poetry Lecture, 2022. 

In our age of the “total present,” the world is only perceived as something that can be criticized, but no longer as something that can be changed. Which cross-border forms of protest still seem justified when the reality is that there is no alternative anyway? In his new book, Milo Rau shows how we can combat the perceived mood of doom. Drawing on his experiences as a director and activist, he talks about how to reclaim the future. In his radical essay he sets out to search for new forms of thinking, feeling and collective action. One thing is clear: the existing order must be disrupted, sustainably, persistently, again and again. 

Moderated by Frank Hentschker.

Milo Rau, born 1977 in Bern, is director, writer and artist in residence at NTGent. Rau studied sociology, German and Romance languages and literature in Paris, Berlin and Zurich with Pierre Bourdieu and Tzvetan Todorov, among others. Critics call him the "most influential" (Die Zeit), "most awarded­" (Le Soir), "most interesting" (De Standaard), "most controversial" (La Repubblica), "most scandalous" (New York Times) or "most ambitious" (The Guardian) artist of our time. Since 2002 he has published over 50 plays, films, books and actions.

Rau's theatre productions have been shown at all major international festivals, including the Berlin Theatertreffen, the Festival d'Avignon, the Venice Biennale, the Wiener Festwochen and the Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels, and have been touring in over 30 countries worldwide. Milo Rau has received many awards, including the 3sat Prize 2017, the Saarbrücken Poetics Lectureship for Drama 2017 and, as the youngest artist after Frank Castorf and Pina Bausch, the renowned ITI Prize of the World Theatre Day in 2016. In 2017, Milo Rau was voted Director of the Year in a survey conducted by Deutsche Bühne, in 2018 he received the European Theatre Prize for his life's work and in 2019 he was the first artist ever to be appointed Associated Artist of the European Association of Theatre and­ Performance – EASTAP. In 2020 he received the renowned Münster Poetry Lectureship for his complete artistic oeuvre. His plays were voted "Best of the Year" in critics' surveys in over 10 countries. In 2019 he received an honorary doctorate from Lund University in Sweden, in 2020 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Ghent University.

Since 1 July 2023 Milo is Intendant of the Vienna Festival (Wiener Festwochen).