12-14, November 2010, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
Catharsis:
Remembering the Past is Responsibility for the Present
(in Czech, English and German language)
November 12 - 14, 2010 Prague
Encounters VI event is part of the project
Mnemosyne – Theatre of Memories/Phase I: Getting Together.
Programme
Friday, November 12, 2010
13.30-15.30
Visit to Department for Magazines of National Library
Insight into the work of John Heartfield
John Heartfield was one of the friends of Lenka Reinerová and at the same time a person of great importance for culture of remembrance. John Heartfield's work was present in many issues of Worker's Illustrated Magazine (Arbeiters Illustrierte Zeitung) that was published in Prague between 1933 and 1938. That was also a period when brothers Heartfield used to run a small printshop in Prague, after had escaped from Berlin.
(in English and Czech)
Meeting Point: Slavia Café at 13.00.
18.00 – 20.00
Prager Literaturhaus
Ječná 11
Presentation of the book
Mnemosyne – Theatre of Memories / Phase I: Getting Together
(in German language, translation to English provided)
The book has come out as the result of this year's endeavour of Association for Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Research (AIIR) to activate remembrance of totalitarian regimes of the XXth Ct and discuss its reflections in contemporaneity.
The book is being presented in Prague Literary House that was founded, among others, by Lenka Reinerová, who inspired the project in the first place.
With the introductory word by Sonja Leboš, editor of the book and initiator of the project, and presence of some authors. Ivan Ristić from Vienna will introduce the work of Bogdan Bogdanovic, the architect who built an array of anti fascist monuments in ex-Yugoslavia.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
10 – 13.00
Visit to DOX Centre for Contemporary Art
Exhibition PLANET EDEN. Tomorrows World in Socialist Czechoslovakia
This exhibition will provide us with the insight into the world of Communist utopia that did not happen, as well give us opportunity to connect to the work of contemporary artists who reflected on their post-communist identities.
Meeting Point: at the lobby of DOX Centre at 10.00
17.00 – 20.00
Presentation of the publication Mnemosyne – Theatre of Memories and the discussion Remembering the Past is Responsibility for the Present
Gender Studies, Gorazdova 20
The book Mnemosyne – Theatre of Memories serves partly as a sort of both textual and visual libretto for continuance of the work on theatre installation in 2011, and partly as a sort of theoretical reader about cultures of remembrance, in cinema, education, public space and theatre. After the book presentation, some directions for future work on the project will be given:
Ellie Macias Gutierrez is going to speak on the subject of theatre and trauma and Lea Čumbelić about her experiencing of sharing memories with a witness of antifascist women's resistance on Island of Korčula.
Ellie Macias Gutierrez
Remembering and Performing Trauma. Expressing the inexpressible
This presentation poses questions and thoughts surrounding the implications of remembering and sharing the traumatic through contemporary performance. It gives an insight into two work-in-progress pieces, which involve the testimonies of the traumatic life of women. Sharing traumatic memories involves communicating not only the facts of the traumatic event, but the emotional and psychological dimensions of it as well. How then can artists communicate through performance these subjective dimensions of someone else’s traumatic past? In other words, to represent what is beyond representation? And also, how can an audience engage affectively with the traumatic event and its subjective dimensions if the event is distant from their own reality? Sharing traumatic experiences is a challenging process that involves remembering pain, communicating it, and engaging with it. Through my recent work, I explore and question how contemporary performance’s diverse artistic modes or representation can (1) embody languages of metaphoric and fictional dimensions where the psychological and emotional layers of the traumatic event can be performed and engaged with; and how (2) remembering pain through artistic means can facilitate the process of sharing the traumatic.
Ellie Macias Gutierrez is a PhD candidate at the Brunel University in London.
Lea Čumbelić
Ana’s Story
Ana Pecotić-Čobo is one of the founders of Antifascist Women Front on Island of Korčula, Croatia. During WWII in Croatia, Antifascist Women Front (Antifašistička Fronta Žena – AFŽ) was an extremely powerful force: women were fighters against Nazi occupator and their domestic allies, nurses in partisan hospitals, teachers for children refugees, and much more. The role of AFŽ in fighting Nacism in Croatia has not been fully recognized yet. Lea’s interviews with Mrs Ana who now lives in a home for elderly people on island of Korcula will give us possibility to get to know at least one of these remarkable women.
Lea Čumbelić is the Manager of TTO Kamelejone, the Croatian enterprise that manages a wide range of cultural and artistic events on Island of Korčula. Lea is one of the founders and members of “Association For the Island Majsan Cultural and Natural Heritage Protection” a non-governmental, non-profitable association, established with a goal to protect and inform about the island of Majsan, one of the most important archeological sites in Dalmatia as well one of the founders of `Mravci,' a non-governmental, non-profitable youth association.
20.00- 22.00
Dinner Party (place to be announced on Saturday)
Sunday, November 14, 2010
10.00-12.00
Since then I believe in fate...” Transports of Protectorate Jews to Byelorussia, 1941–1942
Visiting the exhibition at Robert Gutman Gallery
Meeting Point: in front of Robert Gutman Gallery U Staré školy 3, Prague 1
At 10.00
In public’s eye, the Shoah against the Jews of Bohemia and Moravia is associated mainly with the Terezín ghetto and the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. Less well known are the deportations of Jewish prisoners to other ghettos (e.g., Riga, Izbica, Zamosc, Rejowiec), forced labour camps (Sawin, Krychów, Ossowa) and concentration camps (Salaspils, Kaiserwald, Maly Trostinets) in the Baltic States (Latvia and Estonia) and the Nazi-occupied territories of Poland and Byelorussia. The history of the death camps (Chelmno/Kulmhof, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek), where prisoners were murdered in gas chambers on an industrial scale, should be treated as a separate chapter. During a single year, more than a half of all Jews from Bohemia and Moravia were dispatched to these places; 48,991 were murdered, only 549 survived. The exhibition series “Since then I believe in fate…” documents the stories of tens of thousands of Czech Jews who were earmarked for physical liquidation by the Nazi regime. The first part of the series, which was presented in 2005, focused on the deportation of Czech Jews to the Baltic States. The second, in 2007, dealt with the fate of the transports to Nazi-occupied Poland. The third and final part of the series looks at the stories of people who disappeared in Nazi-occupied Byelorussia…
12.00-14.00
Lunch gathering (place to be announced after the visit to Robert Gutman Gallery)
Organisers is covering admission fee for the exhibitions at DOX Centre for Contemporary Art and Robert Gutman Gallery to registrated participants.
Registered participants are also welcome to dinner party on Saturday evening as well to lunch gathering on Sunday.
Please registrate until Friday 12 by noon, at:
or
Further inquiries at:
Phone: 00385 61 80 547
Mobile: 00385 (0)91 506 26 82
In cooperation with:
Gender Studies o.p.s. Prague
Prague Literary House
Support:
EU Commission – EACEA, ‘Europe for Citizens’ Programme, Action 4.
Active European Remembrance
City of Zagreb – Office for Education, Culture and Sport
Ministry of Culture – Republic of Croatia