Memory, Art and Culture
Remembrance and Dealing with the past after 1989

International Conference and workshop in Berlin: 2-5 July 2008
in the House of the World Cultures, Berlin

to download the Conference and Workshop Programme please visit:
http://www.network-migration.org/d/projekte/index_mac.htm

Since 1989/90, the divided memory culture of Eastern and Western Europe
has been changing within the new social, political and cultural sphere of
post-socialist Europe. This interdisciplinary conference reflects on
individual and collective memory and the interpretation of remembrance in
Poland, Germany, Czech Republic, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and
Kosova after 1989. Despite the different historical contexts in and
between these countries, their societies and people face similar
experiences of war, flight, expulsion and (ethnic) post-war conflicts.

In reunified Germany, in Poland and in the Czech Republic public
discourses on war, flight and expulsion are questioning national myths,
and politics of memory are challenging the relations between these three
countries. In contrast to the peaceful transition in socialist Central
Europe, the former Yugoslavia experienced violent upheavals, wars and new
forced migrations, which led to nation building processes in Croatia,
Bosnia, Serbia and Kosova.

The project goal is to open a dialogue and an active exchange between
artists, historians and social scientists and examine national,
transnational and European cultural memory discourses in post-war former
Yugoslavia and Central Europe. This interdisciplinary project focuses on
the following questions: How are the societies of Central-Eastern Europe
and South-Eastern Europe dealing with their past? What does European
memory culture mean and how are artists dealing with memory culture? Are
there common ways in Europe to remember the different and similar
experiences of war, flight, expulsion and (ethnic) post-war conflicts? Are
there any limits that can be defined regarding the common memory culture?

The international conference in July 2008, which is open to the public,
and a follow-up closed workshop are the starting points of the
transnational project MEMORY, ART and CULTURE. The project will be
developed into a year long cooperation between scientists and artists in
each one of the selected countries. Through creative dialogue and an
active exchange between the project participants from the different
countries, selected artistic and cultural works on memory will be
elaborated for a forthcoming exhibition and publication. A second workshop
will be held in November in Belgrade in the Goethe Institute (5 to 9
November 2008). In spring 2009 an exhibition and a third workshop will
take place in Berlin.

International Conference and first workshop in Berlin: 2 -5 July 2008 in
the House of the World Cultures, Berlin
Conference and Workshop Programme

Second Workshop in Belgrade: 5 -9 November 2008 in the Goethe-Institute
Belgrade and the Centre of Cultural Decontamination, Belgrad

Realisation:
Netzwerk Migration in Europa e.V. in cooperation with Allianz
Kulturstiftung and Haus der Kulturen der Welt

Partners:
Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, www.hkw.de
Goethe-Institut, Belgrad, www.goethe.de/ms/bel
Zentrum KARTA, Warschau, www.karta.org.pl
Youth Initiative for Human Rights, Belgrad, www.yihr.org
The Documentation Center Wars 1991-1999, Belgrad
Center for Cultural Decontamination, Belgrad, www.czkd.org.yu