The notion of “Heimat” (home) is deeply rooted in history. Ahlam Shibli will talk about her work Heimat that refers to expellees and refugees (
Heimatvertriebene and Flüchtlinge) of German descent who were forced to leave their homes east of the Oder-Neisse line in 1945/46, and to guest workers (
Gastarbeiter) from the Mediterranean region who were recruited since the middle of the 1950s to facilitate the German “economic miracle.”
Heimat is concerned with ways in which members of both groups of migrants succeeded in, failed at, ignored, or resisted creating a new home for themselves in a place they did not particularly choose for that purpose.
See her lecture on our YouTube channel
here.