Visiting Artists and Speakers presents: Sonya Schönberger

Berlin artist Sonya Schönberger works in video, photography and installation to explore questions of memory, identity and trauma especially in relation to the impact of WWII on several generations of Germans. In a recent work, she met eyewitnesses from the time of World War II and conducted personal interviews with them, exploring the cultural memory of the German society. She followed these witnesses and memory-keepers into the everyday life of the Third Reich: onto the battlefields, in prison camps, into devastated cities, on their escapes and into their after-lives.

 

In previous works, projects and films, Schönberger asked questions about the home (Heimat), identity, ancestry and tradition. Through her research with witnesses from World War II she has managed to consequently extend these topics. The impacts and traumas of the war on Germans transformed not only for the immediate affected generation the question of Heimat and national identity, but also tremendously for the following generation. By meeting victims and perpetrators, Schönberger tries to shed light into this neglected subject matter.

 

For further information or inquiries please contact: mharbrid@uoguelph.ca