Sound in the Silence is an interdisciplinary remembrance project aimed at encouraging high school students from all over Europe to reflect actively on the complexities of the 20th century history with the use of artistic means.The locations of this year’s edition of the programme are the House of the Wannsee Conference in Berlin, Germany, and Jasenovac Memorial Site, established near Jasenovac in Croatia. For eight days, an international group of up to 28 students will work together with professional artists to create a performance based on their reflections and emotional responses to the programme, bringing together acting, dance, sound and creative writing. While the programme participants learn about the site's past and work on the final performance, their teachers will take part in workshops on interdisciplinary ways of teaching history and exchange experiences with colleagues from other countries.
The place where young learners come into contact with history for the first time, the school does not always offer conditions conducive to understanding the past. Sound in the Silence is intended to fill that gap, facilitating international, interdisciplinary cooperation between schools and external experts and artists representing various disciplines. Offering young people an opportunity to directly experience memorial sites and interact with others who have different experiences, the projects stimulates sensitivity, curiosity and tolerance. Learning in an international environment, coupled with integration and dialogue of youth from different countries and marked by twentieth-century history in different ways, will help them better understand the past and broaden their horizons.
The educational process proposed by the project includes two parts: one based on learning and history and one based on arts. During the first part, the young participants are guided around a selected memorial site, a concentration or forced labour camp. They learn about its history as well individual fates of its inmates, which facilitates stepping in their shoes and thus a more in-depth understanding of the past. Then the participants attend an interactive lecture and discussion staged by scientific coordinators. The lecture aims at presenting a broader historical context as well as systematising and consolidating their existing knowledge (accounting for school syllabus differences in individual countries); the discussion, in turn, provides a space for asking questions, exploration and comprehension.
The other part is art workshops of around a week, during which the final performance is prepared as a team effort. They are delivered by means of an exposing teaching method intended to activate the student’s whole personality, both intellect and emotions. The method consists in simulating situations and role-play using words, gestures, movement and sometimes props. The point is not theatre, however, as the final performance is not based on a ready-made text but is an open structure where new content, actions and interpretations can be inserted. Consequently, playing a specific role requires personal engagement on the part of the student. The method allows for the emotional experience of specific problems, looking for one’s own solutions as well as making choices. It also accelerates the students’ emotional, intellectual and social growing up. It additionally teaches them understanding themselves and others at the level of feelings and emotions.
Webseite
https://enrs.eu/edition/sound-in-the-silence-2023
Country
international
Runtime
since 2011
Contact for more informations
Justyna Radziukiewicz: justyna.radziukiewicz(at)enrs.eu
Project results
Learn more about the rules for participation in 2023
See the results from previous editions in English
Learn more about some of the project's partners, Documenta nad ENRS
[The description of the activity, individual projects and products is based on the content of the Initiative's website.]
