Hi, I am Ariane Saltoris, born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, living in Germany since the winter of 2006.

I am a trained actress and director, Horror fiction researcher, a published author awarded by the city of Berlin during the pandemic, folklorist, the founder of Caipora Books; and on the foundation of all this, is Ariane, the mother, who holds all the others together, giving them direction.

Echoes of Empathy was conceived in 2015 — the year when Syrian refugees came to Germany.

A young German woman approached me at the gym we’d both been going to at the same times for months. From our conversations, she knew I was a trained actress and theater director in the making. She told me the amateur theater of that small city was receiving refugees for activities, and asked if I wanted to help. In her mind, I would have good ideas about what else they could do.

She was right. I did. And that was the problem.

We met for coffee one day and I laid out my idea for her. She was over the moon: “That’s exactly it!” she said.

Confident, we made an appointment with the director of the amateur theater. He received us in his home, made coffee, and offered cookies. All nice and friendly. Until I told him my idea:

I wanted to start a theater play — not for the outcome, but for the journey. Everyone who has ever been on stage knows that the true work is not learning how to play a role. It’s what comes before that, in-between and underneath. I would ask for a translator and a therapist. I wanted to know how to approach people the right way. We would find out what the people there loved about their homes, which stories they had to tell, who they were. It would be a community effort, each one doing what they do best, bringing German youth onto the stage to interact with the Syrian youth.

The man was shocked: “You are an actress, miss, you have an artist’s ideas.” (Well. That’s kind of the point.) I argued that I was a stranger to this country, just like them. He said: “These people suffered a great deal.”

Which was true. That’s why he saw fit to let traumatized people, with no perspective or healing tools, sit all day and knit.

I wish I was kidding. I’m not.

He didn’t let me join the pool of volunteers. The young German woman who brought me there was speechless. “I can’t believe what just happened. That was the idea.”
It was, and we knew it. But what does an immigrant girl like me know about migration, right?

I knew I was the one with the better method. And that idea never left me. It chewed on me for years. And, now, here we are.

Because I still believe that ethical and controlled confrontation with monsters is the only way to bring us together. Today much more so.

From 2015 on I was on and off searching for ways to have better conversations. I am no good Samaritan, but I am an artist, and artists are hungry for change.
In my path of becoming a published Horror fiction author and academic researcher, I stumbled upon peer dissertations that set me on fire. They showed me how to contribute to my society in a meaningful way, using the one thing I love most doing in life: bathing in the red lines of dark tales.

I collected stories, perfected the argument, reviewed the angles that would serve institutions and organizations better.
So, Echoes of Empathy was born: heavy, healthy and screaming at the top of its lungs.

I couldn’t be prouder, and it would be my honor to help you close that gap.

All you need to do is open the door, and let me handle the monsters.

I wasn’t in “awe”, I was in “ouch!”.
A few years back I moderated a discussion on immigration at Wegweiser, a renowned conference center, in Berlin, Germany, thanks to Mr. Oliver Lorenz, the company’s CEO, who believed I would create a rich day for their attendees. And I did. We did.

It all started with me on stage telling people that this time they weren’t there to listen, they were there to talk. I could see many faces lighting up.

And talk they did.

I had many valuable insights that day, but three, in particular stuck with me:

• An older woman said angrily that Germany should stop being so precious and talking about inequality for women in middle-eastern countries, when inside this country women were nowhere near being treated as equals.
• A Ukrainian woman said smiling and very confidently: “I am not German. I live here, I do all the right things, this is my home, but I am not German; and I do not want to be.”
• A man in his thirties, blond and blue-eyed, looked intensely at me. He was English born, and raised. His wife was half-German, like him, and had my olive skin, she was born and raised in Germany, but he was the one that never had his heritage questioned, because he was light skinned.
• Accross from me, a man stirred in his seat. He was uncomfortable in his seat, a German man in his sixties; an attendee, not a participant. He sunk in the chair a little, arms folded. The picture of discomfort, and what he said next was the needle that moved everything for me, it was the moment that made that conference worth gold. He said, awkwardly, defensive, not quite looking at me: “Well, when I look at you, I can’t know you have a German passport, can I?”

Bingo. There it was. Because of the color of my skin I won’t be perceived as German, no matter whether I was born here or not. I was not, so I didn’t much care; but what about those who are German and happen to be brown? How do they feel?

In that split second, I knew that talking about the problems and the differences wouldn’t make people open up. It would cause shame. And that is one sticky feeling that won’t go away that fast; it mutates. Becomes aversion, in some cases.

That day, I noticed how much still has to be done — for both sides.
“Maybe”, I wondered, “it takes a weird person, with very “out-there-ideas” to light the fruitful path people don’t even know exists”.

And that’s just what I did.