Exhibiting Violence
During the twentieth century, large parts of Europe have been affected by war, violence and oppression. The First World War marked the beginning of a new form of representing war and violence in museums, including the sufferings of civilians. Experiences of total destruction and widespread death brought on debates about how to exhibit these existential experiences.
The central aim of the workshop is to discuss the origins of presenting violence and war in museums both in Western and East Central Europe during and right after World War I as well as to discuss central issues of a new ethic of objects of war and violence in presenting them in museums in Western and East Central Europe, today. The workshop in Lille and Péronne aims to reflect on history and its role in current theoretical debates focusing on the question of a new sensitivity of exhibiting and viewing objects of war and violence in historical museums in Western and East Central Europe.
Workshop organized by the Imre Kertész Kolleg Jena in cooperation with the Goethe-Institute Lille and the Historial de la Grande Guerre in Péronne.
Conference Venues: Goethe Institute Lille, 98 rue des Stations, 59000 Lille & Historial de la Grande Guerre, Château de Péronne, 80201 Peronne cedex
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Programme:
Lille, 28 February 2014
15:00 Opening of the workshop - Joachim v. Puttkamer (Jena)
15:15 Keynote lecture: Sociology and its role in current theoretical discourses on violence - Wolfgang Knöbl (Gießen)
16:45 Coffee/ Tea break
17:15 Introduction - Volkhard Knigge (Jena/ Weimar)
17:30 Panel: The historical development of exhibiting violence - traditions and forms of representation
Chair: Volkhard Knigge (Jena/ Weimar)
Panelists: Thomas Thiemeyer (Tübingen), Christine Brocks (Sheffield); Piet Chielens (Ieper)
Péronne, 1 March 2014
08:30 Bus transfer to Péronne
10:00 Official welcome in Péronne
10:15 Guided tour through Le Historial de la Grande Guerre Péronne and discussion
13:00 Lunch
14:00 A new ethics of visualizing violence? / An ethics of things I
Chair: Dorothea Warneck (Jena)
Recommendations regarding the use of human remains in collections and museums of the German Museum Association - Wiebke Ahrndt (Bremen)
The Viennese exhibition "Masks. Approaching the Shoah" (1997). The problem of finding an ethical approach to human objects from the National Socialist period in exhibitions - Felicitas Heimann-Jelinek( Vienna)
A new sensibility? Photographs of violence in the Wehrmachtsausstellung and Focus on Strangers: Photo Albums of World War II - Petra Bopp (Hamburg)
16:30 A new ethics of visualizing violence? / An ethics of things II
Chair: Wlodzimierz Borodziej (Warsaw/ Jena)
Researching and exhibiting: how forensic photographs of mass graves are handled in exhibitions - Adrian Cioflânca (Iasi)
Approaches to historically sensitive places: Specifics of exhibiting Socialist Violence - Ioana Boca (Bukarest)
Approaches to historically sensitive places: The ash memorial and the gas chambers at the Majdanek State Museum - Lukasz Myszala (Lublin)
Exhibiting objects with a sensitive history. The International Slavery Museum Liverpool - Richard Benjamin (Liverpool)
18:30 General Discussion: Joachim v. Puttkamer (Jena), Volkhard Knigge (Jena/ Weimar)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contact:
Dorothea Warneck
Imre Kertész Kolleg Jena
Leutragraben 1
07743 Jena