Häs Designs On.
Photographs by Simon Thorogood
The Swabian Alemannic Fastnacht or Fasnet carnival, held throughout Southern Germany, parts of North Eastern Germany, and Central Switzerland, has its origins in Medieval folk traditions.
Festivities traditionally involve a collective celebration of food, music, costume, language and parades as communities come together to feast on surplus perishable food before the start of Lent. Fastnacht was recognised by Unesco as having ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage’ in 2014.
A parade typically involves a procession of costumed characters of all ages, including babies and the very young. Some of these costumes, accessories and props are several hundred years old and each indigenous to a particular region, village or community. They are each headed by a Jester or ‘Narren,’ whose role and costume (Häs) represents the political interests of a specific club or district. Other popular characters include a bear, witch, demon, raven, and ‘wilde leute’ (wild people). They all don carved wooden masks, many of which are passed down through generations.
Having pagan origins, the culture fell out of fashion during the Age of Enlightenment and the Baroque period, (mid-late 1600’s), when the Catholic Church sought to prohibit the tradition, seeing it as opportunity for people to criticise authority and disrupt theological influence. However, the Romantic period (around the end of the 18th Century) would see a revival by the German educated middle classes. This resurgence would even receive the Church’s blessing, which recognised the merits of playing out the Devil versus God conflict in order to amplify congregation numbers. The Baroque period would also see costumes becoming distinctively more flamboyant and outlandish.
Costumed, masked and often fuelled by alcohol, participants commence the procession in an orderly fashion but progressively lose themselves to abandon at the centre of festivities. Certain characters run amok amongst onlookers and spectators, both intimidating them and showering them with small food gifts or sweets, gradually assuming uninhibitedness and ‘otherness’ as they literally embody their character.
As a spectacle, the event is wondrously impressive and highly visual, yet there is a darker side to proceedings. For certain participants and performers, the event can teeter on a brink between the loosening of social norms on one side with sheer overindulgence and debauchery on the other.
But, arguably the characteristics evidenced at Fastnacht are the very attributes underpinning many compelling creative expressions – to connect with others, to challenge commonly-held assumptions, to ask complicated questions of oneself, and to test out being someone, something, and somewhere else.
Fastnacht can then tell us something about how essential ‘opting out’ is to us, in some form or shape, and for some period or other. It also tells us how critical the arts and humanities are to human storytelling, and the crafting of different worlds and mindsets.
