This paper discusses the role of audio and visual testimonies in safeguarding, understanding, pre... more This paper discusses the role of audio and visual testimonies in safeguarding, understanding, presenting, validating and decentering the history and memory campscapes, be it, for researchers, practitioners, memory activists, or museum visitors. Its primary objective is to present and contextualize two research tools developed within the framework of the project Accessing Campscapes: Strategies for Using European Conflicted Heritage: the Campscapes Testimony Catalogue, a new directory of oral history interviews devoted to selected camps covered within the scope of the project; and the online environment Remembering Westerbork: Learning with Interviews – a prototype of an online display environment presenting survivors’ experiences to today’s visitors in an exemplary memorial that opens up, expands and complexifies the paradigmatic narrative offered by the campscape at the on-site exhibition.
iC-ACCESS evaluates the role that material culture plays in enhancing, limiting or suppressing kn... more iC-ACCESS evaluates the role that material culture plays in enhancing, limiting or suppressing knowledge concerning former Nazi and Soviet campscapes. We adopt a broad definition of material evidence: objects (e.g. personal belongings, weapons, tools, domestic items, clothing), structural remnants (e.g. buildings, barracks, fences and guard towers, extermination infrastructures), human remains and forensic trace evidence (e.g. DNA of victims in mass graves) to understand their role in the development of camp memorials and heritage sites. We are equally concerned with material remains in archives and memorial museums, as with findings of previous archaeological investigation, but we also examine the ways in which material traces and forensic evidence have been used by revisionist groups, educators, the media and the public (in particular online) to engineer alternative interpretations of Nazi and Soviet atrocities. Working closely with the associated partners and other stakeholders, ...
Transfers of property are an integral part of armed conflicts and instances of mass political vio... more Transfers of property are an integral part of armed conflicts and instances of mass political violence. Not just the state and the military, but also civilians confiscate, dispossess, loot and redistribute wealth across ethnic, national, class or religious lines, in the process re-enacting and sustaining the boundaries of othering and belonging that stand behind the conflict. In this way, economic violence takes on an essentially political dimension. Although, to date, rarely conceptualized as such, even grave robbery perpetrated at the burial sites of a defeated enemy or a member of othered minority constitutes a practice of alterity and dehumanization. And while, in the aftermath of violence, this very fact has the ability to invest things taken from mass graves with a particularly disturbing potential, this article reflects on the practices and affective dynamics surrounding objects of a distinctively unsettling status: golden teeth and dental bridges in their ambivalent conditio...
Special issue of the Austrian Journal of Historical Studies (OeZG), 2022
Current approaches in critical museology, visual and postcolonial studies challenge the establish... more Current approaches in critical museology, visual and postcolonial studies challenge the established ways in which historical museums, especially those relating to modern or contemporary history, create meaning. The single, homogenous, and nationalised historical narrative has lost credibility as the assumed standard of storytelling in historical exhibitions, so have traditional formats of exhibition and display in museums. As a result, many actors in the field have been left wondering how to animate the current buzzwords of museology, such as participation, multi-dimensionality, positioning and dialogue while still committing to the public's expectations in regard to education and guidance, so pertinent for museums devoted to legacies of political violence. Critics' demands from museums to reflect on ethical issues when exhibiting conflicted or violent histories has transformed what is considered "justifiable" curatorial practices and thus, what historical exhibitions should look like. Activists and scholars have pointed out, for instance, that by displaying relicts or documents of a violent past, especially when connected to colonialism, war or genocide, museums perpetuate historical semantics of power and, as a result, reify the humiliation of victims and leave frames of violence and power intact. Similarly, museological analysis has shown that the exhibition of political propaganda can contribute to a re-evoking of historical ideology, thereby museums are constituting (or contributing to) the allure of precisely that violent rhetoric which they are claiming to educate the public about. Some fear that a reflexive consideration of such questions might force museums to empty their display cases and thus create a void in historical narratives, obscuring altogether the history of oppression or violence. And yet, such stories can be told from a position of empathy with the victims, by representing multiplicity of voices, or by engaging the audience/participants with reflexive meta-questions. This special issue of the Austrian Journal of Historical Studies (OeZG) is collecting interdisciplinary perspectives from historical studies, theoretical museology and other fields of research that contribute to the advancement of debates on display of violence in museum exhibitions. We invite scholars to critically analyse contemporary museum practices and trace the shifting ethical standards of how to represent historical violence in museum spaces. We call for papers that identify trends and changes in museological standards pertaining to display of artifacts, photographs and other medial representation of violence. We are especially interested in combinations of theoretical considerations with analyses of specific cases and comparative exhibition analyses, which focus on the role of visual material, objects and stories in staging and perpetuating violence and victims' humiliation, and in discussion of strategies used by cultural institutions to deal with complex material, such as e.g. perpetrator photography and propaganda material or human remains. Of particular interest are papers examining emerging curatorial responses and exhibition techniques which seek to disrupt propaganda and violence. Authors are invited to discuss museums' positioning within the field of cultural power dynamics as such, alongside strategies of hegemony, (racialised, gendered etc.) marginalization, and exclusion. Possible lines of inquiry are: Why and how have exhibitions recently changed how they display artifacts or visual representation of violence? How does the often applied emphasis on individual and victim's perspectives tie in with questions of the renewal of violence and re-traumatisation? What positionalities vis-à-vis displayed violence are museum visitors/participants invited to adopt or perform? What relevance can be attributed to the binary between agency and structural approaches or the treatment of everyday life as illustrative of specific historical and contemporary contexts? Finally, what is the role and performance of violence in exhibitions that aim to create emotion and reach broader audiences via the exploitation of shock value or to justify their institution and mission?
Interview Zuzanne Dziuban had with me for the Polish magasin Snak
Pamięć przypisywano niemal... more Interview Zuzanne Dziuban had with me for the Polish magasin Snak
Pamięć przypisywano niemal wyłącznie ludziom. A rzeczy także pamiętają! Ich trwanie pozwala nam dostrzec przeszłość, odmienną od tej, którą piszemy dla siebie-przeszłość pełną porażek, bezużyteczną, która jednak nie przeminęła, ale ciągle nam towarzyszy.
The 'Spectral Turn': Jewish Ghosts in the Polish Post-Holocaust Imaginaire (Introduction and Tabl... more The 'Spectral Turn': Jewish Ghosts in the Polish Post-Holocaust Imaginaire (Introduction and Table of Contents)
This paper discusses the role of audio and visual testimonies in safeguarding, understanding, pre... more This paper discusses the role of audio and visual testimonies in safeguarding, understanding, presenting, validating and decentering the history and memory campscapes, be it, for researchers, practitioners, memory activists, or museum visitors. Its primary objective is to present and contextualize two research tools developed within the framework of the project Accessing Campscapes: Strategies for Using European Conflicted Heritage: the Campscapes Testimony Catalogue, a new directory of oral history interviews devoted to selected camps covered within the scope of the project; and the online environment Remembering Westerbork: Learning with Interviews – a prototype of an online display environment presenting survivors’ experiences to today’s visitors in an exemplary memorial that opens up, expands and complexifies the paradigmatic narrative offered by the campscape at the on-site exhibition.
iC-ACCESS evaluates the role that material culture plays in enhancing, limiting or suppressing kn... more iC-ACCESS evaluates the role that material culture plays in enhancing, limiting or suppressing knowledge concerning former Nazi and Soviet campscapes. We adopt a broad definition of material evidence: objects (e.g. personal belongings, weapons, tools, domestic items, clothing), structural remnants (e.g. buildings, barracks, fences and guard towers, extermination infrastructures), human remains and forensic trace evidence (e.g. DNA of victims in mass graves) to understand their role in the development of camp memorials and heritage sites. We are equally concerned with material remains in archives and memorial museums, as with findings of previous archaeological investigation, but we also examine the ways in which material traces and forensic evidence have been used by revisionist groups, educators, the media and the public (in particular online) to engineer alternative interpretations of Nazi and Soviet atrocities. Working closely with the associated partners and other stakeholders, ...
Transfers of property are an integral part of armed conflicts and instances of mass political vio... more Transfers of property are an integral part of armed conflicts and instances of mass political violence. Not just the state and the military, but also civilians confiscate, dispossess, loot and redistribute wealth across ethnic, national, class or religious lines, in the process re-enacting and sustaining the boundaries of othering and belonging that stand behind the conflict. In this way, economic violence takes on an essentially political dimension. Although, to date, rarely conceptualized as such, even grave robbery perpetrated at the burial sites of a defeated enemy or a member of othered minority constitutes a practice of alterity and dehumanization. And while, in the aftermath of violence, this very fact has the ability to invest things taken from mass graves with a particularly disturbing potential, this article reflects on the practices and affective dynamics surrounding objects of a distinctively unsettling status: golden teeth and dental bridges in their ambivalent conditio...
Special issue of the Austrian Journal of Historical Studies (OeZG), 2022
Current approaches in critical museology, visual and postcolonial studies challenge the establish... more Current approaches in critical museology, visual and postcolonial studies challenge the established ways in which historical museums, especially those relating to modern or contemporary history, create meaning. The single, homogenous, and nationalised historical narrative has lost credibility as the assumed standard of storytelling in historical exhibitions, so have traditional formats of exhibition and display in museums. As a result, many actors in the field have been left wondering how to animate the current buzzwords of museology, such as participation, multi-dimensionality, positioning and dialogue while still committing to the public's expectations in regard to education and guidance, so pertinent for museums devoted to legacies of political violence. Critics' demands from museums to reflect on ethical issues when exhibiting conflicted or violent histories has transformed what is considered "justifiable" curatorial practices and thus, what historical exhibitions should look like. Activists and scholars have pointed out, for instance, that by displaying relicts or documents of a violent past, especially when connected to colonialism, war or genocide, museums perpetuate historical semantics of power and, as a result, reify the humiliation of victims and leave frames of violence and power intact. Similarly, museological analysis has shown that the exhibition of political propaganda can contribute to a re-evoking of historical ideology, thereby museums are constituting (or contributing to) the allure of precisely that violent rhetoric which they are claiming to educate the public about. Some fear that a reflexive consideration of such questions might force museums to empty their display cases and thus create a void in historical narratives, obscuring altogether the history of oppression or violence. And yet, such stories can be told from a position of empathy with the victims, by representing multiplicity of voices, or by engaging the audience/participants with reflexive meta-questions. This special issue of the Austrian Journal of Historical Studies (OeZG) is collecting interdisciplinary perspectives from historical studies, theoretical museology and other fields of research that contribute to the advancement of debates on display of violence in museum exhibitions. We invite scholars to critically analyse contemporary museum practices and trace the shifting ethical standards of how to represent historical violence in museum spaces. We call for papers that identify trends and changes in museological standards pertaining to display of artifacts, photographs and other medial representation of violence. We are especially interested in combinations of theoretical considerations with analyses of specific cases and comparative exhibition analyses, which focus on the role of visual material, objects and stories in staging and perpetuating violence and victims' humiliation, and in discussion of strategies used by cultural institutions to deal with complex material, such as e.g. perpetrator photography and propaganda material or human remains. Of particular interest are papers examining emerging curatorial responses and exhibition techniques which seek to disrupt propaganda and violence. Authors are invited to discuss museums' positioning within the field of cultural power dynamics as such, alongside strategies of hegemony, (racialised, gendered etc.) marginalization, and exclusion. Possible lines of inquiry are: Why and how have exhibitions recently changed how they display artifacts or visual representation of violence? How does the often applied emphasis on individual and victim's perspectives tie in with questions of the renewal of violence and re-traumatisation? What positionalities vis-à-vis displayed violence are museum visitors/participants invited to adopt or perform? What relevance can be attributed to the binary between agency and structural approaches or the treatment of everyday life as illustrative of specific historical and contemporary contexts? Finally, what is the role and performance of violence in exhibitions that aim to create emotion and reach broader audiences via the exploitation of shock value or to justify their institution and mission?
Interview Zuzanne Dziuban had with me for the Polish magasin Snak
Pamięć przypisywano niemal... more Interview Zuzanne Dziuban had with me for the Polish magasin Snak
Pamięć przypisywano niemal wyłącznie ludziom. A rzeczy także pamiętają! Ich trwanie pozwala nam dostrzec przeszłość, odmienną od tej, którą piszemy dla siebie-przeszłość pełną porażek, bezużyteczną, która jednak nie przeminęła, ale ciągle nam towarzyszy.
The 'Spectral Turn': Jewish Ghosts in the Polish Post-Holocaust Imaginaire (Introduction and Tabl... more The 'Spectral Turn': Jewish Ghosts in the Polish Post-Holocaust Imaginaire (Introduction and Table of Contents)
Where does a picture, a visual depiction of an act of violence, locate us, the observers? Whose p... more Where does a picture, a visual depiction of an act of violence, locate us, the observers? Whose perspective do we adopt, and/or perform, when we are confronted with an image of the tormented body, the object of pain and suffering, of a vulnerable victim, with or without the presence of the perpetrators? In what follows, we start with discussing the propensity to adopt certain positionalities in facing these questions, and their analytic and ethical implications. The text then draws on Derrida's notion of the frame (parergon) in analyzing Jojakim Cortis’ and Adrian Sonderegger’s Double Take poster, showing a diorama of the Abu Ghraib torture photographs, and suggest a reading that could unsettle the familiar repertoire of treating/conflating victims' and perpetrators' perspectives – a double “double take.”
Forensische Methoden tragen in ihrer Gestaltung und Übersetzung materieller Spu-ren zu einem neue... more Forensische Methoden tragen in ihrer Gestaltung und Übersetzung materieller Spu-ren zu einem neuen Verständnis der Vergangenheit bei. Sie formen die Beziehungen zwischen Lebenden und Toten und rufen neue Dynamiken von Erinnerung und Trauer hervor. Diese Ausgabe der ZfK widmet sich der Rolle der Forensik in der Alltagskultur sowie in Kontexten von (Massen-)Gewalt der weiter zurückliegenden und unmittelba-ren Vergangenheit-von kolonialen wissenschaftlichen Praktiken über die Aufarbei-tung der NS-Zeit und des Spanischen Bürgerkriegs bis zum zeitgenössischen Mexiko. Im Debattenteil wird, ausgehend von einem Text Rosi Braidottis, die Möglichkeit einer »nomadischen europäischen Bürgerschaft« diskutiert.
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Pamięć przypisywano niemal wyłącznie ludziom. A rzeczy także pamiętają! Ich trwanie pozwala nam dostrzec przeszłość, odmienną od tej, którą piszemy dla siebie-przeszłość pełną porażek, bezużyteczną, która jednak nie przeminęła, ale ciągle nam towarzyszy.
Pamięć przypisywano niemal wyłącznie ludziom. A rzeczy także pamiętają! Ich trwanie pozwala nam dostrzec przeszłość, odmienną od tej, którą piszemy dla siebie-przeszłość pełną porażek, bezużyteczną, która jednak nie przeminęła, ale ciągle nam towarzyszy.