what moves me…
The world is falling apart around and within us
– socially, politically, emotionally. Many people respond with withdrawal, defensiveness, or polarization.
What is missing that would allow us to respond differently to what is happening? And what do we need to be able to react differently?
I believe: We need spaces, moments, and opportunities where we can come into contact – with ourselves, with others, and with the conditions that shape our actions.
Where we allow ourselves to be touched – by pain, confusion, longing.
Where we recognize and seek knowledge, allowing new paths and perspectives.
Where something new can be found and tried.
The work of connection, the practice of slowing down to think, and the power of creativity are not a luxury but essential competencies in these times.
I am ….
I am a nonbinary wanderer, dreamer, thinker, lover.
Learning. And unlearning.
white-bodied, queer, socialized as female, nonbinary, with a lower secondary school certificate and an art diploma.
I live with many invisible disabilities.
Some of them seem to belong to me.
Some seem to belong to you.
Some seem to be between us.
They are my teachers.
You are my teachers.
I am my teachers.
Mano Krach
Born August 1980, GDR
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From the early diagnosis of "difficult to train" through lower secondary school, punk years, welfare, to art university—to many years of chronic "illness" and from there to here
In these circumstances I am seeking my own path—often without knowing where it will lead me, without certainty that it is “legitimate” or will be welcome. And that is often a difficult and often painful path to walk.
Running in large circles and taking side roads became my path—not by choice, but because in many places there was rarely room for me to be myself.
I graze on all the surrounding meadows, dig beneath the surface, follow traces that others do not see. There, a perspective develops for what often remains invisible at the center—for hidden patterns, unspoken rules, for what works beneath the surface.
Running in large circles and taking side roads. There I learned to see differently, to hear differently.
This perspective is a strength. I draw on it.
In recent years, I have been intensively engaged with approaches that are often devalued in Western discourse:
Decolonization of perspectives on knowledge and healing
Destigmatization of mental illness
Mindfulness, and the practices of dialogue, listening, and slowness
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For over 20 years, I actively engaged in self-organized political and social spaces. In these spaces, I gained deep insights into group dynamics, power structures, and how our experiences of trauma and violence affect our relationships and conflict behavior.
I also observe this pattern: groups promise themselves freedom, consensus, equality – yet beneath the surface, hidden hierarchies and unconscious behavioral patterns exist.
Dominant voices drown out quiet ones. Quick reactions replace deep thinking. Critical or neurodivergent perspectives are often experienced as disruptions rather than enrichments.
At the same time, I witness the division: the political is separated from the psychological. Emotional or psychosocial needs are labeled as "doesn't belong here – go see a therapist." But this separation is artificial. We bring our wounds, our trauma, our behavioral patterns into political spaces. If this cannot become a topic – what are we even talking about?
I believe also we are experiencing a crisis of imagination – a loss of the ability to envision other ways, other relationships. And this is precisely where I begin.
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Not experts from above, but support for agency and capacity building for ourselves and within communties.
Making knowledge accessible. Creating spaces where people can connect, learn, grow.
Creating spaces and weaving together the political with the psychological, the individual with the collective, the inner with the outer.
I believe…
...another world is possible.
A world that works for everyone.
I also recognize: a world is dying.
A world we share. A world we need.
And a world that currently only works for a few.
"Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing." —
— Arundhati Roy
I wonder if you can sometimes hear her breathing too?
what nourishes me …
To bear the madness and pain of this world, I must go to a meadow, under a tree, or into cold water super regularly.
Always, and again and again.
Immerse myself in the cold water of a lake.
I call her Fräulein Wasser.
Winter. Summer. Winter.
I love listening to her breathing.
I must. listen to her.
Through her, beside her,
I feel her, alive, breathing.
And every wild meadow is for me a poem in which I can linger endlessly.