The research priority area of the University of Aarhus Uses of the Past hosts a seminar on November 8 to revisit closed prisons, former refugee camps and other spaces of past repression;
It will count with the participation of speakers from European Observatory on Memories – EUROM, Horsens Prison Museum and Refugees Museum Project in Oksbøl and Uses of the Pasts.
What should we do with former spaces of repression, suffering, atrocities and despair once closed? Leave them alone and let them slowly erode away? Demolish them to eliminate their marks and their relevance in the present? Resignify them to shed light on the present? Frame them as historical sites to learn about us? Who makes this kind of choices? And why? For whom?
Those are some of the main issues to be discussed on a roundtable that aims to promote interaction and cooperation between cultural institutions and citizens to give shape to public spaces and use them actively as sites of learning, participation and vital change.
Speakers
- Oriol López Badell, European Observatory on Memories – EUROM
- Laura McAtackney, Aarhus University, prison heritage
- Merete Bøge Pedersen, FÆNGSLET, Horsens Prison Museum
- Anne Sofie Vemmelund Christensen, Refugees Museum Project in Oksbøl
- Sarah Smed, Danmarks Forsorgsmuseum
Further information:
Diana González Martín [email protected]