Events

The Ravensbrück Memorial opens the new special exhibition by the Israeli artist Rotem Bidas in the former waterworks. Since 2023, Bidas has been conducting research on the grounds of the former women's concentration camp. There, vegetation, soil, and trees have outlived the political regimes that shaped the site over more than 80 years, from National Socialism through its use as a Soviet military base to the present-day memorial. The exhibition asks: where does memory reside once the last human witnesses disappear?

During the camp's expansion, rows of fast-growing poplars were planted along the camp road; the landscape itself became part of an architecture of power and repression. Today most of these trees lie across the ground as immense trunks. The artist proposes that we regard this wounded landscape itself as an archive. She approaches the fallen trees not as mere metaphors but as material witnesses: their trunks, roots, and growth rings become alternative sources of history.

In 1:1 scale prints and frottages made directly from the fallen poplar trees located beside the former 'Tent' area, Bidas's work emerges not as mere depiction but through contact between body, materials, and place. Her art does not document the camp in the conventional sense; rather, it records the encounter between artist and landscape, present and past.

The opening takes place as part of the nationwide Open Monument Day (Tag des offenen Denkmals), whose theme this year is „NETZwerke: Denkmale & Infrastruktur" (Networks: Monuments & Infrastructure). To mark the occasion, the memorial offers a thematic special tour giving access to areas of the site not otherwise open to the public.

Programme

Welcome: Dr. Andrea Genest, Director of the Ravensbrück Memorial

Introduction to the exhibition: Rotem Bidas, artist, and Dr. Yarden Stern, curator

Followed by: a guided tour of the exhibition with the curators

Coffee and cake at the former petrol station

3 pm: thematic special tour of the site with Aliena Stürzer

Venue

Ravensbrück Memorial, former waterworks

Free admission

Contact

Contact: Aliena Stürzer

E-mail: stuerzeraravensbrueckode

Venue

Ravensbrück Memorial Museum
Straße der Nationen
16798 Fürstenberg/Havel