Juliane Kaestner

“Poor Knights”* and “Be Ready – Always Ready!”**

My name is Juliane Kaestner. I was born in the summer of 1973 in Dresden. I come from a family of impoverished nobility, of entrepreneurs, and of ordinary workers, divided into a camp of “evil capitalists” and of convinced communists. These two camps led to interesting encounters, tensions, and intense discussions within the extended family.

I often have spent my summer holidays with my grandparents and when driving around different locations of the region, the two of them commented their fate with: “This villa or this factory once belonged to our family.” We were expropriated.

Childhood and Art

Dresden is a city of arts and my parents made sure they became my second nature. Already as a four-year-old, I was benefitting from art galleries, concerts, operas, ballet and theater performances.

The German Democratic Republic has been fostering talents and so at first I was cast for the classical ballet. I passed the examination at the famous Palucca University of Dance and due to the fact that I was still quite young at this time, I was affiliated to the preparatory class. In further medical examinations, however, it was discovered that my pelvic bones are not appropriate for the profession of a dancer. I have been dancing classical ballet for a total of ten years, most recently at the Palace of Culture in Dresden. Since I was not challenged at this ensemble, my parents sent me to a school of music. And at this school it turned out, that I could not read music at all, but that I had been playing by ear all those years before. At the same time, my talent for drawing has been discovered and fostered with numerous art courses. I loved to dive in the different techniques, to learn to express myself in different ways, to study other artists. And I enjoyed the creative work until the moment I was asked to design propaganda posters.

Marx and Engels: Interpreted and Turned into Reality

My parents taught me to form an opinion by myself, to think independently. Despite of the fact, that both of them were constantly put under pressure for refusing to enter the party. I observed the life around me, formed my own opinion and expressed it. My father was summoned to the school director several times and admonished to raise his child in the spirit of socialism.

For various reasons, my parents finally made the application for our emigration to the Federal Republic of Germany. The following three years, our family had an intense relationship with the Stasi, the secrete police in East Germany. As a 14-year-old, two ministry officials accompanied me as soon as I left the house.

We were merely able to speak freely when going outside and taking a walk, in our apartment we were tapped. Our letters were opened and read. Neighbours and some distant family members were working as informal collaborators for the secrete police. Inconceivable, severe events and times followed.

In December 1988, we finally received the permission to leave the country for the Federal Republic of Germany, with a suitcase in hand and the status of political refugees. Less than a year later, the Berlin Wall fell, in the midst of our preparations for moving to Switzerland, where my father’s career took us.

My family was now a veritable specialist in emigration. We have been living in three countries within a year. In Switzerland, in December 1989, we started all over again to re-build our lives. I joined the fourth educational institution within twelve months.

“Storm and Desire”

At the Kantonsschule Solothurn I attended the Business High School. To create a balance to the patriarchal world of student fraternities, we founded Adrasteia Solodorensis, consisting purely of women. I was baptized in one of the fountains in Solothurn’s old town on the name “Athena”, the goddess of the arts and wisdom.

According to the motto: “Being an artist is a job without a living”, I made a rational decision and studied business administration at the University of St. Gallen. To finance my studies, I have been working as a scientific assistant at one of the institutes of the university. The Gambrinus was a jazz club in St. Gallen and my second home. As waitress and regular guest I dived into the world of jazz.

Career and Volunteer Work

My professional life began in 1999 as a project manager. Later on I have been working in strategic and operational management. During these years I have continued with my long-term commitment to deal with alternative management and leadership philosophies, but also with the development of technologies and of our society.

Again and again I dedicated myself voluntarily to the protection of animals, but above all to people of different ages and backgrounds. I participated in a whale research project in southern France. As a mentor and coach, I have been advising young women with migration background in their career choices and prepared them for the professional world.

During my sabbatical, I have been living in Nepal and the Seychelles for three months each. In Pharping, Nepal, I taught novices and monks in a Tibetan monastery in English and natural sciences. I coached the supervisor of the monastery in leadership and introduced a structure to promote hygiene and health. On the archipelago in the Indian Ocean I worked in a research and conservation project in a protected marine reserve. We dived several times a day to study the recovery of hard coral and reef fauna and provided the results to the government.

Back in Switzerland, I founded the non-profit organization LIGHTEN THE WAY, which was based on new models of cooperative and self-determined development aid. For this I completed the postgraduate studies “Foreign Affairs and Applied Diplomacy”.

Artist

Since childhood, the creative work as an artist has been an integral part of my life and one of the keys to my personal development as a human being.

Over the years my need to devote more time to my art in its different expressions and techniques deepened. I therefore increased my workload as an artist and reduced that as an employee. Finally, I took the step to entirely work as a self-employed person. Today I am living in Switzerland and on Guadeloupe.

As a member of the art committee of the Kulturschüür Männedorf, an organization that supports not only established but also emerging artists, I am evaluating and consulting applying artists. 

* Also meaning a dish similar to french toast
** Slogan of Ernst Thälmann Pioneers