In our exhibition project Odyssey – an Exile Collage, the characteristics of Marseille as a place of temporary refuge and reservoir of the intellectual elite of Europe between 1933 and 1942 will be expressed in a film by Maya Schweizer, a wall piece by Olaf Metzel, and a reference to the Heinrich Heine Memorial by Danish sculptor Louis Hasselriis.
Thus, the acutely relevant themes of exile and migration will be explored in different artistic genres, approaches and time periods, the changeful history of the Heine monument in Toulon acting as a historical point of reference for the timeless theme of persecution and refuge. Both Olaf Metzel‘s wall sculpture Hannah Arendt (2018) of the Jewish-German philosopher as well as Maya Schweizer‘s film The Dying Soldier of Les Milles (2014) deal with the disrupted fate of humans forced to flee from their native countries in multi-layered ways that merge the past and the present.
That way, Odyssey– an Exile Collage aims to raise the public’s awareness for patterns of discrimination and persecution from the past still relevant today in the hope that, by learning from the past, future generations will strive to show more solidarity towards human beings segregated as minorities.
A proposition and curated by Drawing Room, Hamburg and Produzentengalerie Hamburg in collaboration with the Centre Photographique Marseille.
