Apr 1–May 14, 2006

Youth Programme

MemoryScape and The Dream of the Red Chamber

Which influences shape a society’s cultural memory? And who decides what is to be part of that memory and what isn’t? How do the various elements of our collective memory reappear in various art forms? Two creative projects with workshops and presentations for school classes deal with these questions.

The present project centres on the way young people visualise collective memory. As the young people co-operate with MemoryScape artists, they will be able to ascertain what significance monuments and symbols have for them. A number of questions arise here: What role does background (migration background, residential environment) play in the selection of motifs? Do the memory symbols of the younger generation and those of adults differ in any way? What is the relationship between individual memory trails and the visual form of the city? In examining these questions, the project draws its inspiration above all from the History and Memory section of the exhibition Between Past and Future. With this approach, MemoryScape will attempt to answer some more general questions: Is an entire generation losing its memory through being flooded with images from magazines, the television and the computer? What does this mean for the cohesion of a society that mostly defines itself in terms of a shared memory?


The novel, The Dream of the Red Chamber, was the literary model for a play that artist Zhao Zhigang will be showing in April. As they discover Chinese music theatre - presented by musicians, experts, costume designers, composers and dancers - the young participants will gain a greater understanding of European opera. They will discover the differences and common features of the two theatre forms as they learn about them in a practical and ‘playful’ manner.