Jean Monnet Fellow Profile: Gesche Würfel
This guest post from UNC instructor and artist Gesche Würfel outlines her summer 2019 research in European capitals, supported by a Faculty Travel grant from the Jean Monnet Center of Excellence, based in the UNC-CH Center for European Studies.
Since the beginning of the twentieth century art, architecture, urbanism, and other related fields have investigated the production of images that shape the symbolic dimension of our experience of cities. This summer, I researched representations of cities with a focus on major European capitals: Berlin (Germany), Prague (Czechia), and Warsaw (Poland) in the 20th and 21st century. I am particularly interested in the 1920’s and the time leading up to World War II (WWII); the time of WWII and its widespread destruction; the division of Germany and Berlin that followed WWII, communism in East Germany, Czechia, and Poland; the fall of communism in these countries and the importance of the European project. WWII is an important event in European history since it is a foundational element for the European Union. The European Union was created with the aim of ending wars between neighbors.
Apart from researching the histories and representations of these three capitals, I also took trips to additional cities for my research: Bremen and Dresden in Germany, Terezín in the Czechia, and Gdańsk in Poland. Additionally, I photographed two former concentration camps (Stutthof in Poland and Terezín in Czechia), the remains of the Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw and the forest of Piaśnica, Poland where mass executions were carried out by German special forces in the first months of World War II, as well as the former Jewish Ghetto of Terezín in Czechia. Having visited these places adds to my previous research on WWII and the Holocaust. I want to show how the history of WWII continues to influence the contemporary landscape and cities, its inhabitants, art, culture, politics, and our understanding of history.
During my research trip I was really struck by visiting Poland. I was overwhelmed by selecting places I wanted to visit for my WWII research. There are places that bear witness to atrocities all over Poland, the first country invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany in 1939, be it the concentration or death camps, forests were massacres were executed, cities that were bombed, etc. In contrast, it was very uplifting to visit the European Solidarity Centre (Europejskiego Centrum Solidarności) in Gdańsk.
This museum commemorates the revolution of Solidarity (rewolucję Solidarności) lead by Lech Wałęsa in 1980 and the fall of communism in Europe. Over the course of nine years, Solidarnośc triggered many changes in Central and Eastern Europe that led among others to the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe. Both Poland and Czechia joined the European Union in 2004.
I would like to thank the Center for European Studies at UNC Chapel Hill and the European Commission for supporting my summer research in Germany, Czechia, and Poland with a JMCE Summer Travel Grant. I have spent six weeks researching and revising content for the existing course “ARTS 290 Special Topics: Exploring the City Through Visual Arts” (syllabus) with the aim of adding more EU content.
The JMCE Faculty EU Research and Travel Awards are sponsored by the Jean Monnet Center of Excellence (JMCE) at the UNC-CH Center for European Studies. For more information on awards supported by UNC’s JMCE, visit our awards page. To learn more about UNC’s 2018–21 JMCE, visit our JMCE website.
The European Commission’s support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
