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As it stands, there is no theorised body of crisis in interdisciplinary

Wende research. While psychologists have linked specific psychological issues to an individual failure to cope with the socio-economic changes, it has not been conceptualised as a collective body of crisis with reference to 1989. For example, the experience of a rapid rise in mass unemployment, the radical decrease in self-confidence, and increase in alcohol abuse have been attributed to the effects of 1989. The most affected have been men and according to state sources that have painted a picture different from other Eastern European countries, there was a marked suicide trend that had only declined by 1998 (RKI, 2009). Demographers have received a lot of attention by pointing to the aforementioned "birth shock", a sudden drop in the birth-rate and the reluctance of Eastern German women to give birth in the early years of the new Berlin Republic (Eberstadt, 1994).

Similarly, health researchers have noted a radical increase in the rise of allergies by approximately thirty percent in Eastern Germany since 1989/90. The high numbers cannot be fully explained by heightened awareness and better medical assessment, factors repeatedly mentioned in the discussion. Rather, they should be linked to a change in environment, food consumption, life style and hygiene caused by German unification (Krämer et al, 2015). "The increase of allergies in East Germany – reaching West German prevalence shortly after the reunification – is considered a model for the allergy epidemic in the western world." (Ibid: 94) The discussion of allergies in relation

"[Because] Eastern Germany's unexpected and rapid transition from Communism to a 'social marked economy' has been a time of shock and crisis for the general public of the former GDR, they should be dispelled by the region's demographic trends. The conjuncture of extreme and anomalous tendencies – the upswing in mortality and the collapse of births and new marriages portrays a society convulsed by its stresses. […] East Germans are not behaving like a population whose living standards have been significantly increased. Mortality is not usually a handmaiden of prosperity..." (Eberstadt, 1994: 149)

(source: Max-Planck-Institut für Demografie Rostock) (Children per woman)

to 1989/90 thus provides a revealing example of just how quotidian practice may provide evidence of a body of crisis. Changes in daily somatic practices have become paramount when searching for an explanation for an increase in allergies and a decrease in bronchitis for the Eastern German population. In comparative studies, allergists have found a decrease in those respiratory ailments in Eastern Germany caused by the rapid deindustrialisation process and the use of gas instead of coal as energy resources. Thus East Germans have tended to be less sick with bronchitis since 1989, especially in polluted areas such as Bitterfeld (Heinrich et al. 2000; 1999). However, adopting a Western everyday life style in consumption has been cited as contributing to a steep rise in allergies. For example, the all-year round availability of exotic fruits and ready-made food consumed instead of seasonal vegetables has been named as a main risk factor. Also, the improvement of housing conditions, e.g. through thermal insulation, has left its mark. Ironically, it has contributed to the further rise of mildew and other origins of allergies. Regarding children, changes in family patterns and parenting have contributed massively to the rise in allergies. Because most children in the GDR went to nursery very young, they infected each other much more regularly, thus producing a better immune system. In summary, the allergist Jörg Kleine-Tebbe declares such developments a product of Western life style in all its facets (2010).

These research findings and others have so far remained contested and somewhat disconnected from each other. That is, they have not been bundled into a specific area of research, though

"In conclusion: If these illnesses are civilatory diseases, then allergies are a product of western standards of living in all their facets. […] Nurseries, pets, air pollution (less coal, but more cars), the isolation of apartments, kiwi fruits on the table... a lot has changed, after all. In the end, there is am abundance of causes which do not allow for an unambiguous assignment. (Kleine-Tebbe, 2010: 2; Translation M.H.).

one study examining data on the rise in overweight and obesity has warned of developments causing a "looming public health crisis" as a consequence of 1989 (Kromeyer-Hauschild and Zellner, 2007: 404). By contrast, positive developments have regularly been used by politicians to foreground a collective body of crisis overcome in 1989/90, most prominently in Ulla Schmidt's last public speech as the Federal Republic's Minister of Health in 2009 (Schmidt, 2009). Instead of focussing on the body of crisis that has developed in the East after 1989/90, they have downplayed potentially negative effects of 1989.

Narrating a body of crisis

Interview analysis set out to identify evidence of individual bodies of the political crisis, which was tackled from two angles. First, it addressed those body changes that in interviews were actively attributed to the

Wende. Second, we explored the notion of a collective political, social, cultural and economic crisis – the collective body of crisis – that was evidenced in the somatic practices of the women interviewed, even if not consciously enacted and told. In the interviews three people narrated a body of crisis that was directly related to 1989. These bodies of crisis are linked to somatic issues also identified by allergists, nutritionists, and psychiatrists. For example, Kaja was very outspoken about her neurodermatitis as the ultimate reason for leaving the GDR. For her, coping with a severe case of skin disease was impossible in the GDR. The lack of medication and suitable daily care products, e.g. detergents and dermatological products, made everyday life for her a matter of endurance. According to her, it also influenced her

Kaja: "If there was one reason why we would have left the GDR, it was for my neurodermatitis. If '89 had not happened, I would have applied for permission to leave the country."

choice of clothing and caused her to be less interested in fashion. In retrospect, she has mentioned an experience of somatic freedom with regard to 1989. Her overall lack of interest in fashion guarded her further against substantial self-doubt and the consequences of social pressure to remake her outward appearance after 1989.Pinia, a 13 year-old, also received medical treatment for neurodermatitis and was sent to Croatia in the summer of 1989 for specialist treatment. Her parents were eager to leave a mouldy apartment building in the south of the GDR, and eventually moved to the Federal Republic in the early Nineties. It was this move to the West which Pinia remembered as decisive in forming her specific body of crisis, her puberty magnifying cultural differences between East Germans and West Germans. Faced with a homogeneous small town school environment within which she had to socialise as the only East German, she was made painfully aware of her social status as a cultural outsider. To learn how to conform to Western standards, to move, talk, and react, but also how to negotiate different expectations in the search for her own identity, marked her teenage years and were crucial in developing a post-socialist body and strong East German identity. Eager to fit in, her attempts were somewhat fraught by the exposure through classmates, leaving her, if not completely isolated, in a small group of outsiders, longing for acceptance. According to her, the liberating moment from this constant pressure to perfect an individual appearance was constituted by her return to eastern Germany to study and live with other East Germans.

With regard to an explicit individual somatic crisis of 1989, the story of Ella was remarkable. A 55 year old primary teacher in 1989,

she was deeply troubled by the political events and disappointed by immediate demands for the abolition of the GDR. Unable to sleep at night, she resorted to taking Meprobanat, a strong medication for sleeping disorders. She also tried to fend off her sorrows with sweets and chocolate, most of them sought-after delicacies in the GDR. By the end of 1990, she had lost all her upper teeth, something she explicitly attributed to her nerves being wrecked by the political events.

Remembering a healthy body of 1989

With regard to the other women, the certainty with which interviewees talked about a healthy body in 1989 was surprising. In answering my questions concerning sickness and an overall feeling of physical fitness in 1989/90, all of these women referred to their good health and general fitness. As an inter-generational phenomenon it included a young mother as well as a pensioner, the self-confident as well as the anxious. If a crisis was alluded to at all, it was presented as personal crisis unrelated to the state crisis. Only in a few instances was an explicit link made between political events and their impact on the everyday. For example, Wanda mentioned the difficulties in enduring her husband's changing moods. As a Navy officer, he was deeply worried by the new and unclear situation of 1989/90. His anger and outbursts finally caused a separation and she moved back to where they had lived before, trying to re-establish herself as a person. Likewise, Morag also had to grapple with her husband's change of job caused by the political crisis.

In these interviews, the women did not talk about their own bodies as a potential body of crisis. An explanation might be found in the fact that 1989/90 was indeed perceived as a time of upheaval and, in retrospect, as a time in which the state crisis proved terminal on a collective level. A matter of consciousness, these grand political changes are not easily linked up with the changing quotidian practices of individuals. Moreover, the changing habits in consumption still retained the status of the extraordinary, e.g. the occasional trip to supermarkets in the West. This is explicated by the results of research into nutrition changes: "Differences in food intake between the eastern and western parts of Germany still existed in 1998, although these differences were smaller than those observed one year after reunification" (Mensink and Beitz, 2004: 1000). We can conclude that the women had not yet come to experience the long-term consequences of a Western lifestyle. In comparing the results of the German nutrition survey eight years after unification, Mensink and Beitz clearly indicate a changing East German collective body. However, most of the women interviewed did not see themselves yet as potential victims of Wende-related illnesses like allergies and obesity.

Though a link has been made between allergies and a Western lifestyle academically, this has not been promoted publicly as an explanation. Accordingly, interviewees showed a general reluctance to blame individual conditions on the Wende. Instead, somatic consequences of the Wende were individualised in the interviews, while the political consequences were approached as a collective experience. A majority of interviewees framed the everyday of

"The prevalence of obesity (BMI 30) was significantly higher among East German women compared with West German ones. The prevalence of regular supplement use and of sport activity (2 h/week) was significantly lower among East Germans compared with West Germans. East German women significantly [...] less often smoked in the past compared with West German women." (Ibid: 1002 ff.)

1989/90 as an extension of their former day-to-day life. While changes in consumption and employment had already occurred, important markers of the daily routine remained the same. Children had to be cared for and entertained, and were still brought to the same schools and nurseries. Food was still mainly bought in the same shops; neighbours and friends still met as often as before; the rent was still cheap and paid to the same authority.

Performing change: The apple

In the studio, we raised the question whether changes in somatic practices with regard to 1989 are taboo within German memory discourse or only evident on a subconscious level to the interviewee, and thus hard to register and account for. However, the interviews did not hint at a suppressed notion of physical change; rather they are evidence of a forgotten body in remembering the Wende. The

interviews thus followed the pattern of conventional historiography in narrating the changes of 1989, which made it difficult to register body changes via interviews. The method showed its limitations in documenting instances that hint at changing somatic practices. Here performance was employed as a research method to expand on the narrated instances of a body in crisis in looking at traces of change. The performance tasks were based on the assumption that most somatic changes tended to go unnoticed unless they are framed as pathological; that is, as disturbing daily regimes and making a person inept at fulfilling everyday demands. In this respect, somatic knowledge preceded explicit knowledge in determining acknowledgement of decisive factors in decision making. The underlying neuro-psychological paradigm is

The rents were still paid in East German Mark until the monetary union on July 1, 1990, when they were translated into D-Mark on a 1:1 basis. They climbed in the following months, in line with prices for groceries, by approximately thirty percent.

called somatic marker hypothesis and has framed the high significance of somatic markers for decision-making (Bechara et al., 1997). Within this strand of research, somatic memory and related change is perceived as highly influential in everyday decision making, but usually kept beyond (or below) the realms of reflection. Following a number of criticisms made by cognitive scientists, Guillaume et al. (2009) have revisited the foundations of their studies and the surrounding debates and concluded that somatic markers and explicit knowledge are both important – both intuitively as well as consciously – in decision-making. Performance seemed well suited for unearthing forms of somatic memory that are deeply ingrained in the body and also for offering different tools for documenting ways of grasping change.

Initially, the second sequence was to be created from a literal translation of verbatim interview material into the non-verbal language of visual performance. The images employed were derived from interview material in which the body and somatic practice was either explicitly narrated as crisis-ridden or easily identified as such. I was eager to express the difficulty of identifying the precursors of crisis in narrating everyday life – especially in a process of retrospective remembering overlaid by the memory of grand political events. Performance-based crisis translation centred on specific performance tasks carried out: by redoing action that had been narrated in the interviews as linked to a crisis of the body; by exploring the somatic quality of being torn between two structures of feeling ‒ that is, a sensory crisis; by durational action to explore the crisis of narration; and by retracing physically the sensual experience of consumption to get close to the

crisis of socialist consumption. We indulged in all kinds of excessive behaviours attributed to 1989 such as wasting, mishandling, and playing with food or cramming ourselves with sweets and exotic fruits. In various ways, we searched for somatic access beyond association that would point toward the experience of a sensory crisis.

The interviews also emphasised a change in sensory experience through the consumption of Western food and daily care products that impacted on the experience of smell and taste. This has also been the subject of a study by Astrid Vonderau, who documents Lithuanian women recalling cosmetics eaten as food and pointing at a strong post- communist experience of sensory change (2010). In correspondence, Daphne Berdahl describes one of numerous commercial events in which East Germans were introduced to Western cosmetics through touring operators of Western cosmetics firms (2010). Concerning taste, the influx of exotic fruits in 1989 was decisive. They have since become everyday items and their continuous availability a defining experience. In the 1980s in the GDR, they were a seasonal or luxury item. Examples are Vietnamese oranges for Christmas and cans of pineapple segments in exclusive shops (Delikat or Intershop, see Glossary, page 1). This was also confirmed by the interviews.

However, Western products were also remembered as failing to match expectations. Minka talked about her encounter with the presentation of consumer goods as symbolic of her overall Wende

experience. Going to the shops, she experienced a powerful desire

For example, being asked about specific sensory sensations related to the Wende, Barbara stated: "[...] but it was different, a different smell, since you have asked. There was a different scent about all these cosmetics. And of course, also because of the different fruits. That surely made a different smell as well!"

(pictures: Bodies of Crisis)

for the shiny apples which were remarkably different from the Eastern apples that had been available before. The extent of her desire for these apples was matched by her disappointment over the quality of the apples, not tasting like 'a real apple should'.

The remark showed a clear connection between political event and somatic experience in memory. The introduction of exotic fruits has been well documented in cultural memory products and regularly served to evidence the better performance of the Western system and the cultural shock experienced by East Germans. The second experience, the failure of the West to meet the expectations of East Germans, who were also called the "ideal consumers", has been less well documented (Bach, 2002). While the disillusionment of East Germans with Western society, democracy and market economy has been debated as a founding pillar of Wende discourse, it is not normally discussed at the level of sensory experience. Retrospectively, Minka had grounded her frustration with Western performance in a sensory disillusionment. Accordingly, she anchored her disillusionment by directing attention toward somatic knowledge that preceded the critical evaluation of political developments. The interview narrative reflected her experience that her body acted on knowledge that the mind had not yet processed fully. It was this ambivalent state of recognition that we wanted to explore further in the studio in order to examine the quality of somatic precursors to change.

In searching for a translation of the precarious relationship of body and mind, we finally arrived at a performance score that also commented on the re-performance of gender roles and took up the

Minka: "You know, pretty soon after the fall of the wall, the shops started selling Western goods. We had never seen anything like this. See, I went to the supermarket and there were these apples. They were beautiful and shiny, really not like ours. I craved these apples, so I bought one. But biting into it, I thought: This is not an