Conversation with Sasha Marianna Salzmann and Maria Stepanova

Displacement Spoken

Maria Stepanova invites playwright Sasha Marianna Salzmann to explore displacement as a central experience of our time. Together they explore how being forced to leave a country and a language can become a new way of understanding identity and belonging.

Sasha Marianna Salzmann experienced displacement firsthand when they emigrated from Russia to Germany with their family. A key voice in contemporary European dramaturgy, their work is characterised by its engagement with universal themes such as memory, identity and the migratory experience. Salzmann’s writing reflects the losses of those who are forced to leave and presents displacement as fertile ground nourished by multiple languages, voices and heritages. What marks does displacement leave on language? And to what extent can this condition transform our sense of belonging?

Maria Stepanova, current CCCB Resident, dialogues with Sasha Marianna Salzmann about displacement as a force that reconfigures identity and opens new ways of speaking and thinking about the world.