Maritime Sites of Memory
People
Responsible: Prof. Dr. Annelie Ramsbrock, Dr. Ronny Grundig and Antje Kempe
Content
Shipyards, lighthouses, the Øresund or the ferry connections of the Baltic Sea shape and constitute unique sites of memory that are identity-forming for an entire region. The sub-project focuses on the maritime areas of the Baltic Sea region through the concept of realms of memory (lieu de mémoire) coined by Pierre Nora and further developed in recent years to analyse the significance of the past in the current shaping of cultural landscapes.
In the sense of Etienne François, places of memory are primarily transnational but are remembered nationally. In this respect, maritime places of remembrance appear to be prime examples of this concept of cultures of remembrance, as cultural exchange characterised coastal places especially. Therefore, the project aims at an extended analysis of the maritime framework of sites of remembrance to work out global and transnational dimensions that correlate or are amalgamated with national ideas. Comparing of corresponding examples in the Baltic Sea region with maritime realms of memory in the Mediterranean, South America, and Southeast Asia serve to determine global comparability levels and their limits. In this way, the Eurocentric model of sites of memory will be subjected to critical reflection, and alternative approaches such as shared heritage will be discussed.
Workshop „Tidal Recall. Maritime Sites of Memory in the Baltic Sea Region“
17–18 June 2022
Place: University of Greifswald, International Guest House (IBZ), Bahnhofstr. 2 / 3, 17489 Greifswald
The workshop refers to the concept of the memory of sites and seeks to combine the idea of collective memory with that of thassology, a maritime history. It intends to go beyond the comprehension of collective memories as a realm of stable constitution and to stimulate thinking about permanent flux and change as their inherent features. The sea, sometimes considered a space without history, as a fluid ‘non-site’ – to speak with Marc Augé –, can be perceived as figure, material, and media which allows us to interrogate identities, cultures, and societies in their global intertwinings.
We thus operate on the methodological ground elaborated by Pierre Nora, Pierre Bourdieu, Harald Welzer, and others. However, we also ask to what extent those approaches maintain today their topicality considering the perspective on the sea as a realm of fluctuation. As a global and non-permanent place, the sea, seen as a cultural concept, has been widely discussed in recent debates on maritime history, entangled history, and histoire croisée. Also, in environmental art history and history, we perceive the sea as a field of agency. As the sea always encompasses a global and planetary perspective, we examine which spaces of negotiation and discourses prevent or promote processes of conceptualisation, perpetuation, and framing of collective memories. Therefore, we would like to ask: are maritime memory sites suitable for understanding transit processes and spaces such as, e.g. migration and diaspora? In these terms, we are looking for counternarratives, new narratives, events, artefacts, and places or sites of collective memories shaped by the maritime space to shed light on other social and local communities, events, and artefacts. Regarding our approach to the shared cultural heritage of the Baltic Sea Region, we are interested in fractures, blurs, and oblivion – in the common and the divisive elements that foster the understanding of regional trajectories in a global framework.
Friday 17/06/2022
3:30 pm
Welcome & Introduction
Gesa zur Nieden, Antje Kempe
3:45 pm
Marina Dmitrieva (Leipzig)
Staging the War: Sevastopol in Visual Media, 1850s – 1950s – 2014
4:30 pm
Break
5:00 pm
Beata Labuhn (Oslo)
Gdynia–An Inquiry into its Maritime Monuments (Joseph Conrad Monument)
Adrianna Brechelke (Poznań)
Kołobrzeg–the Seaside Town of Memory. Ville de memoire-lieu de memoire
6:00 pm
Break
6:20 pm
Keynote Lecture
Ulrike Plath (Tallinn)
Storms, Droughts, and Floods: Baltic Climate Memory between Land and Sea
Saturday 18/06/2022
9:30 am
Johannes von Müller (Kiel)
Reliquary to the Square: The Plaster Casts of the Cammin Shrine in Greifswald, Copenhagen and Szczecin
Laura Tack (Greifswald)
Shapes of Flood Memory Sites in the Baltic Sea Region – Material and Immaterial
Arne Segelke (Greifswald)
The German Revolution of 1918 as a Maritime Site of Memory in the two German States
11:15 am
Break
11:45 am
Roundtable
„Shifting Memories. How to Exhibit and Mediate Maritime Sites of Memory?”
Chair: Sünne Juterczenka (Göttingen)
With: Teele Saar, Feliks Gornischeff, Urmas Dresen (Eesti Meremuuseum Estonia/Estonian Maritime Museum, Tallinn), Ruth Schilling (Deutsches Schifffahrtsmuseum / German Maritime Museum, Bremerhaven), Benjamin Asmussen (Museet for Søfart / Maritime Museum of Denmark, Elsinore)
1:00 pm
Conclusion
Concept and organisation: Antje Kempe
Workshop Report - Tidal Recall
Tagungsbericht: Tidal Recall, In: H-Soz-Kult, 18.08.2022, <www.hsozkult.de/conferencereport/id/fdkn-128976>.