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In the last three decades a "new physiognomy of the continent" arose (Schlögel 2005). The breakdown of structures caused by political and, more importantly, economic developments gave Ewa Trafna during a visit to Detroit the impulse to artistically engage with her experiences of abandoned property, industrial wastelands, and the standstill of urban communication in previously thriving cityscapes. Overseas, the artist experienced something that was familiar to her both biographically and from the fate of Polish and German cities like Lódz, Bytom, Walbrzych as well as Oberhausen, Bitterfeld, Eisenhüttenstadt and Berlin (Oberschöneweide). Trafna´s series, originating from the memory of Detroit- although it is by all means also currently a geopolitical burning issue-expresses in a universal way how architecture bears witness to an era both its successful times and its setbacks. But with further change they are whitewashed, built upon, repurposed. New cityscapes are created, whose transformations are barely noticeable on site, but which are not only documented by artists like Trafna, but also granted an artistic visage. Art is an actor that engages in the process of urban forgetting and remembering. Trafna´s work provides now an opportunity to pause for a moment and a space to re-think this intermediate state between past and future, both in its melancholy but also its potential.

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Schorlemmer, Uta
Uta Schorlemmer Theaterwissenschaftlerin und Pädagogin, 1990-1996 Studium in Berlin, Paris und Krakau, 1999-2003 Promotion über den polnischen Regisseur Krystian Lupa, 2003-2006 wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin am GWZO/Universität Leipzig und Dozentin am Institut für Theaterwissenschaft der Universität Bern, Kuratorin mehrerer Ausstellungen in Leipzig und Krakau, 2008-2010 Adjunct Professor am German Department des Occidental College in Los Angeles/USA, seit 2011 Lehrerin in Berlin, 2015 Auszeichnung mit dem Kavalierskreuz des Verdienstordens der Republik Polen. Zahlreiche Publikationen, u.a. "Die Magie der Annäherung und das Geheimnis der Distanz. Krystian Lupas Recherche "neuer Mythen" im Theater" (2003); "Tadeusz Kantor. Er war sein Theater" (2005/2010); "Kunst ist ein Verbrechen. Tadeusz Kantor, Deutschland und die Schweiz" (2007).

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