SOFAM Visiting Artists & Speakers presents Sonya Schonberger

Berlin artist Sonya Schönberger works in video, photography andinstallation to explore questions of memory, identity and trauma especiall y 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 conduct ed personal interviews with them, exploring the cultural memory of the Germ an society. She followed these witnesses and memory-keepers into the everyda y life of the Third Reich: onto the battlefields, in prison camps, into de vastated cities, on their escapes and into their after-lives. In previo us works, projects and films, Schönberger asked questions about the home ( Heimat), identity, ancestry and tradition. Through her research with witne sses 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 i mmediate affected generation the question of Heimat and national identity, but also tremendously for the following generation. By meeting victims and p erpetrators, Schönberger tries to shed light into this neglected subject ma tter. For further information or inquiries please contact: mharbrid@uogu elph.ca