Expanding Imaginations
Jagiellonian University
Tadeusz Kantor, the Pre-Humanist?: Diversifying the Social Implications of His ‘Theare of Death’ View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Teemu Paavolainen
The Polish artist and director Tadeusz Kantor (1915–1990) began his theatre career in Nazi-occupied Kraków, during World War II, and broke to international fame, from 1975, with the final ‘Theatre of Death’ phase of his Kraków-based Cricot 2 Theatre. Not surprisingly, much of Kantor scholarship has centered on themes like trauma and violence, or, regarding his ‘bio-objects’ and other torturous stage contraptions, his pre-posthuman destabilization of the hierarchy between human being and object. Especially in the 1980s, however, Kantor would also increasingly emphasize his “need to question and protest” – for his “poor room on stage” to “defend itself” against the forces of arbitrary history: the “official History” of mass ideologies, wars, and crimes. The purpose of this paper is read the social implications of Kantor’s work against the grain of tradition, moving the focus from dark despair toward dignity and resistance. Granted, his performances kept repeating episodes of trauma and discipline, but just as often, they would then break into a whirlwind of dance, music, and childlike antics. Against the official history that he so despised, Kantor also staged a people’s history of common types in common rooms, feeding on the commons of memory and imagination. With the radical political theorists Max Haiven and David Graeber, this paper places his work within the social/thematic/cognitive dualities of history and memory, violence and imagination, metaphor and metonymy – the grand implication being that perhaps, a 'pre-humanist' hope of social renewal is still there to be found even amid its apparent ruin.
Five Survivors Tell the World: Keeping Survivor Testimony Alive Through Documentary Theatre View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Anthony Hostetter
The immediate power of Holocaust survivor testimony and witnessing is unmistakable. As Rob Baum once wrote "testimony arises from the concomitant, simultaneous need to tell the story and to be heard. That's all. The presence of the witness is that which grants testimony its power." Nevertheless, survivors are dying and as Mary Dejevsky put it in 2014, "there is no substitute for just one individual’s testimony, spoken face to face. As the number of those who remember declines, so – inexorably – the link between that past and this present is loosened." While Dejevsky notes that it is the spoken part of testimony that is key, I argue that it is the face to face that is essential. The power of testimony is seeing the survivor's body as she tells her story, as Rob Baum stated, "bodies perform as containers and signs, serving to mark and enliven trauma and its memory." This presentation focuses on the creation of my new play, Five Survivors Tell the World that incorporates the verbatim testimony of Holocaust survivors to tell their stories on stage. These survivors told their stories to countless people in the Philadelphia region for many years. Their testimony served as a valuable tool to bring history to life and combat antisemitism and Holocaust denial. This study explores how to create a play using the survivors’ own words and how these words spoken and lived in the bodies of actors can keep these histories alive through theatrical production.
Dementia-friendly Wales: The Effectiveness of the House of Memories Cymru
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Rafaela Neiva Ganga
House of Memories is a museum-led dementia awareness training for dementia carers. Several national and international partners have adopted the programme. Since 2012, House of Memories evaluations have consistently shown positive outcomes, including i) increased awareness; ii) carers improved wellbeing; iii) improved capacity for critical and creative care; and iv) increased cultural engagement (Ganga & Wilson, 2020). Nonetheless, peer-reviewed evidence to inform policy is limited, and further research is required to advance the field. This paper provides preliminary evidence of the effectiveness of House of Memories Cymru in i) connecting Welsh museums with the health and social care sector; ii) improving the wellbeing of older people and those living with dementia (PLWD); and ii) placing Wales as a dementia-friendly destination. The focus of this paper is to provide empirical evidence of the effectiveness of the House of Memories Cymru in informing the implementation of the Welsh Governments Programme for the 6th Senedd, demonstrating how House of Memories Cymru development skills to facilitate PLWD and their carers (partners/family) to visit Wales; and those living in Wales: i) better quality of life; ii) retention of Welsh language skills, through the implementation of digital innovation (House of Memories app – co-designed by PLWD, use museum collections for reminiscence with carers) supporting carers and PLWD to live better.
Le Musée Français (1803-1812): A Private Publication of Prints, a Claim to Imperial Hegemony, and a Tool in Colonial Aspirations View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Susanne Anderson Riedel
Prints as multiples have the power to disseminate knowledge, ideals, and ideologies. The Musee Français print albums became instrumental in representing celebrated masterpieces from the National Museum in the Louvre Palace, reinforcing aesthetic debate on the European canon of art, glorifying French political leadership, and providing a didactic tool for European hegemony on a global scale. In early 19th century, Louvre Museum grew to unimaginable size and depth of European art through acquisition by annexation and loot. The collections brought together the most celebrated artworks and reproductions of the museum holdings in fine prints made the artworks accessible beyond the walls of the collection. The print albums Le Musée Français, produced by private initiative of the engraver Laurent and his investor Robbilard-Péronville, published c. 500 engravings after ‘masterpieces’ of the Louvre. The success of the publication was imminent and received governmental attention and support. The albums entered private and public art collections, libraries, trade schools throughout Europe and in collections of European colonies. The Portuguese monarchy, establishing political and cultural dominance in Brazil, invited a group of French artists to establish artistic studios in Rio de Janeiro. The Musée Français print albums, brought to Brazil in 1816, played an important new role. European art in prints became a tool of cultural repression and colonial glorification. The multiplicity and portability of prints allowed for the private print project to emerge as a political tool to reinforce ideas of cultural dominance.
