Infrastructures of Memory

Infrastructures of Memory. Actants of globalisation and their impact on German and Polish memory culture

Memory studies often emphasise the importance of socio-political and aesthetic factors of memory cultures. At the core of this project is the assumption that infrastructural factors affect the images of the past. These include, among others, funding and administration as well as technical and environmental conditions. We also believe that, due to the accelerating globalisation, the transformation of Polish and German memory cultures cannot be considered in isolation from the broader European developments. For example, memory cultures are influenced by technological transformations, changes in institutional organisation, mass tourism, social media, as well as the policies by the European Union and other transnational organisations.

In the project, we consider the transformation of German and Polish memory cultures in the 21st century in a broader transnational context. We look at the global networks and infrastructures that influence the production of cultural memories in both countries. We consider the role of human and non-human actors (Latour) in these transformations, that is, both the social actors and the material objects that contribute to memory production. The project focuses on historical and artistic exhibitions, as this medium plays an increasing role in shaping public images of the 20th century history.

Module 1 (Agnieszka Rejniak-Majewska, Tomasz Załuski, Seda Shekoyan): The subject of module 1 are art exhibitions devoted to Polish-German relations with a particular focus on the Second World War and the Holocaust. We follow the methodology of exhibition histories and analyse the process of the exhibitions’ production. We scrutinize their infrastructural conditions, i.e. physical and material properties of the exhibitions, their spaces, technologies, conservation standards, legal regulations, as well as mechanisms of institutional management and financing. We also look at the circulation of exhibitions between Polish and German cultural and memorial institutions.

Module 2 (Izabela Paszko, Zofia Hartmann): Module 2 analyses historical exhibitions in Germany and Poland, with a special focus on exhibitions at historical memorial sites. We look at non-obvious factors that shape these narratives on display, such as their natural environments, construction technologies, administrative structures. We focus on recently opened or recently modified sites in order to capture the aspects of globalization within memory cultures.

Module 3 (Magdalena Saryusz-Wolska): Module 3 focuses on audiovisual materials (AVs) that appear in historical exhibitions in Germany and Poland revolving around the themes of war, occupation and post-war migration. Within this module, we carry out in-depth research on the use films and immersive digital technologies (Virtual Reality, Mixed Reality). This will contribute to our knowledge on the role of globally applied technologies for shaping exhibition narratives.