CHURCH of FEAR


			50. Biennale Venezia Polesitting in Venice Polesitting in general
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		1. Ralf Baumgarten, Germany Pole 4 CoF TOTAL: 6 days, 17:49h Age: 54 Sex: male Bet-Money: 11.180 EUR
		2. Matthias Rollinger, Italy Pole 7 CoF TOTAL: 6 days, 16:44h Age: 26 Sex: male Bet-Money: 8.215 EUR
		3. Fernando R. Garcia, Mexico Pole 6 CoF TOTAL: 6 Days, 16:19h Age: 25 Sex: male Bet-Money: 7.010 EUR
		4. Anna-Maria Behva, Russia Pole 2 CoF TOTAL: 6 Days, 16:02h Age: 23 Sex: female Bet-Money: 7.510 EUR
		5. Susanne Holm, Germany Pole 5 CoF TOTAL: 6 Days, 16:00h Age: 39 Sex: female Bet-Money: 1.890 EUR
		6. Werner Thiel, Germany Pole 1 CoF TOTAL: 6 Days, 15:12h Age: 42 Sex: male Bet-Money: 3.320 EUR
		7. Renate Stauffacher, Switzerland Pole 3 CoF Time: GAVE UP Age: 42 Sex: female Bet-Money: 3.010 EUR

^up	1. Ralf Baumgarten Pole 4 CoF TOTAL: 6 days, 17:49h Age: 54 Sex: male Bet-Money: 11.180 EUR	Ralf Baumgarten, Germany Ralf Baumgarten, who was born in Freiburg in 1948 to catholic teachers, felt his vocation to be a priest early on. Having studied at the Priests’ College in Bonn, he had just been ordained a priest when he met Anna Walewska, who taught him otherwise. After a long inner struggle, he gave up priesthood to open a theological bookshop in Freiburg. He and Anna have six children. »I want to face the challenge, as I did when I was preaching from the pulpit. I was booed for a few of my sermons. Breaking with the church was a logical step. I always had stage fright, before every christening, every sermon. – In Venice, I want to expose myself in the true sense of the word. I hope to find a new home in the Church of Fear.«
2. Matthias Rollinger Pole 7 CoF TOTAL: 6 days, 16:44h Age: 26 Sex: male Bet-Money: 8.215 EUR	Matthias Rollinger, Italy Matthias Rollinger was born in Bozen in 1977. Already when a business management undergraduate, he founded a start-up company that was extremely successful at first. The collapse of the New Economy, however, pushed him into insolvency. He became depressed, only getting out of his crisis when he started to train as a physiotherapist. Since meeting his partner Anna-Maria, the most important thing in his life is always to be there for her – also in Venice. They soon want to start their own practice together. » ›He stops at nothing‹, that’s what my fellow students used to say about me. I was determined and certainly a bit ruthless, too, when it came to carrying out my own projects. I threatened people so I could have my way. So in a way, I made profits from the fears of other people. That didn’t change until the stock market collapsed, but then it changed completely. New horizons opened up for me, and not just sunny ones. I was depressed and thinking of putting an end to it all. My training as a physiotherapist was a great help. I was dealing with patients who were afraid for themselves. To express fear and share fear is a great gift. It can’t be an accident that that was where I met the woman of my life. – I don’t want to win the pole-sitting competition at any price. What’s worth much more to me is that Anna can express her fears.«		^up
^up	3. Fernando R. Garcia Pole 6 CoF TOTAL: 6 Days, 16:19h Age: 25 Sex: male Bet-Money: 7.010 EUR	Fernando R. Garcia, Mexico Fernando R. Garcia was born in Mexico City in 1978. He was 15 when he lost his parents in a motor accident. Being without relatives or financial means, he escaped being put into a catholic orphanage by signing on as a ship’s boy on a freighter sailing between Panama and Bremerhaven. After 6 years at sea, he left ship in Hamburg, where he had fallen in love with a teenage Russian girl. Two years later, he was spotted by a casting director on the Reeperbahn, and has since appeared in small roles in several daily soaps. »As a child, I suffered a lot from the dogmatism of the catholic church in Mexico. Priests regularly beat their pupils. So I got to know fear precisely where I was trying to find courage and fearlessness. Nobody’s going to take away my fear now, I’ve seen too much. – The heat in Venice is no cause for alarm to me. I’m going to send part of my prize to a friend and her five children in Guadalajara.«
4. Anna-Maria Behva Pole 2 CoF TOTAL: 6 Days, 16:02h Age: 23 Sex: female Bet-Money: 7.510 EUR	Anna-Maria Behva, Russia Anna-Maria Behva was born in St Petersburg in 1982. She began to take ballet lessons at the age of four, soon showing herself to be so talented that she entered the school of the Kirov Theatre to train as a classical ballet dancer. After finishing training, she was signed by the Kirov Theatre. Shortly afterwards, while she was in Stuttgart for a guest performance, she recklessly climbed a house canopy and fell, suffering three fractures of her left leg and a broken left hip. While she was in rehabilitation following multiple surgery, she met her life partner Matthias Rollinger. He helps her get over her problems as best he can. The two of them soon want to start a physiotherapy practice and are planning to get married next year. »When I had my accident, I saw fear in the eye. It wasn’t my life that I saw passing through my mind, but fear. It was also there when I went to Germany. My friend Matthias has been a great help to me. He takes my fears more seriously than anybody I ever knew. I’m afraid of large crowds of people and politicians that rouse large crowds of people for their own goals. – I didn’t know that Matthias was also going to take part in the pole-sitting competition. We only met during the great Church of Fear reception in Venice. That was an incredible moment. I knew at once that I can win here.«		^up
^up	Susanne Holm Pole 5 CoF TOTAL: 6 Days, 16:00h Age: 39 Sex: female Bet-Money: 1.890 EUR	Susanne Holm, Deutschland Susanne Holm was born in Dresden in 1964. She won her spurs in the communist Free German Youth and after her school-leaving exams entered training as a librarian. Then she studied German and Philosophy. She has worked as a librarian at the library of the University of Münster for 7 years. She lives in Münster with her husband, a catholic biologist, and her two children. Her best friend is a nun who assisted her in her careful preparations for the First International Pole-Sitting Competition. »My faith has seen a long barren period. I wasn’t allowed to have any faith in East Germany, and perhaps I lost it. In the West, I haven’t been able to find it anymore either, although I keep a copy of the Bible on my bedside table. Instead, my life has long been determined by fear. I’m concerned mainly about my children all the time. – My taking part in Venice is meant to be a sign of my fear for our children and the fears of the children of this world. Compared to their fears and anxieties, seven days are nothing, and I’m sure I’ll hold out.« Please visit her Website.
6. Werner Thiel Pole 1 CoF TOTAL: 6 Days, 15:12h Age: 42 Sex: male Bet-Money: 3.320 EUR	Werner Thiel, Germany Werner Thiel was born in Mainz in 1960, the only child of a bank clerk. After a sheltered childhood and uneventful school years he began training as a wages clerk, joining the company of Albert Bohr Futtermittel KG as an accountant in 1984. In 2000, after 16 years, Mr Thiel was made redundant for reasons he was unable to understand. He suffered a nervous breakdown and has been unemployed ever since. As a result of tightened legislation, he is to stop receiving unemployment benefits next year. Mr Thiel is suffering from intense fear of the future, which prevents him taking a job. »I’m a rather petty-bourgeois type, but that’s why I consider myself as a kind of artist of life. To survive successfully certainly is an art these days. Taking part in a pole-sitting competition, after all, also involves an exhibitionist desire. I’ll try to keep mine under control, but it isn’t always easy. I’ve been in situations where my hand just slipped, as when a Free Democrat town councillor was talking to people in the street during his election campaign. I did it because I hate those cheap and crooked politicians that treat us like we’re puppets to play with. – I won’t always be silent on the pole, but say what I think. I’ve checked back, it isn’t against the rules.« Please visit his Website.		^up
^up	7. Renate Stauffacher Pole 3 CoF Time: GAVE UP Age: 42 Sex: female Bet-Money: 3.010 EUR	Renate Stauffacher, Switzerland Renate Stauffacher, born in Berne in 1960, is a student of Ethnology, Islamic Studies and Sociology in her 14th semester. After taking her school-leaving exams, she started training for a career in commerce but abandoned it due to increasing drug addiction. Three years later, when she was about to break down completely, she escaped to a Tibetan monastery to receive treatment for drug addiction. There she found herself again and also met her current partner, who accompanied her on travels around India, Burma and Tibet. Two years ago, they took up yak breeding and operating a Yoga Mountain Center in the Swiss Alps together. »Pole-sitting, to me, is a meditation against fear. I want to hush it up. But I also want to be allowed to shout it out when I’m overcome by fear. I want to point that out to all visitors of this art show and apologise in advance. Actually, however, I also want to ask them to follow suit. Since my time in East Asia, my fear is a friend. Apart from my husband and our animals, it is my most important interlocutor. I feel good talking to my fear. – I’ve joined the Church of Fear to win support for fear. That’s also my understanding of this community that I want to draw attention to.«

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