The term home seems to promise security and manageability - especially in times of great political and social challenges. But at the same time, home is a very complex term.
People lose their home, maybe their entire village to a brown coal mine or to a war. Others feel alienated in their old home and go in search of one or more new home(s). For some, home is clearly linked to a place they never wanted to leave but are forced to turn their backs on.
When you visit our exhibition, you enter a small settlement with a village square. In the houses you can explore different sides of the concept of home: Home in divided Germany, regional identities, “late resettlers” and displaced persons, Jewish life in Germany, destruction of home by energy extraction projects, the process of finding home for people with an international history. The focus is on developments since 1945.
As a visitor to the exbition you discover the door of a refugee accommodation, painted by a young woman who fled from Syria to Germany. The door testifies to her effort to come to terms with the loss of her old home and to find a foothold in a potentially new home.
The stage set of an idyllic Spree landscape from the village of “Mühlrose” stands for the threat to the Sorbian minority in Germany, its language and culture through open-cast mining.
The term home is used ambiguously and sometimes even misused. The public discussion about home is intense, multi-voiced, contentious, and shaped by individual experience. The exhibition invites you to think about what the notion of home means for the individual and for society. We look forward to engaging in conversation with you at the exhibition, at our events and on social media!
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