Multimedia installation at the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial

About the project

The great-uncle of the artist Sława Harasymowicz, Marian Górkiewicz (born 1914 in Kraków) was a prisoner in the Neuengamme concentration camp. He was arrested as a member of the Polish resistance against the German occupation in Kraków and then deported. He was forced to do forced labor in the brickworks and then in the munitions workshop Messap. Marian Górkiewicz died in the bombing of the "Thielbek" on May 3, 1945 in the Bay of Lübeck.

Sława Harasymowicz visited Neuengamme on several occasions searching for clues, traces and meanings of these finds for her family history. As the artist emphasises, “my work draws on archival and material fragments reordered in new relations to activate place memory of the titular Klinkerwerk, and to enable a more embodied perception. The work crosses over the past and the present, the various phases and purposes of the site and the diverse sensibility and imagination of its contemporary audience. I have reached for documents to re-imagine the facts as an associative montage. Just as actual memory, blending what is known, with what remains unknown in our attempts to understand and 'locate' this place, historically and in the present."

This multi-component installation, consisting of looped sound interventions, drawings and silkscreen prints on paper, Tyvek and sheet metal, weaves together the historical, archival and imaginative possibilities presented by a modernist brick factory situated in the centre of a former forced labour camp. The installation will be on display from 25 August to 17 November 2024 and is accessible during the opening hours of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial in the former brickworks (Monday to Friday 9.30 am to 4 pm, weekends and public holidays 10 am to 5 pm).

The installation is curated by Magdalena Ziółkowska, historian and art critic. Sound installation in collaboration with musician Ian Powell.

On 25 August at 1.30 pm, there will also be an artist talk and exhibition tour with the artist. The meeting point is the former brickworks at the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, the event will be held in English.

The installation is supported by The Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage Scholarship Programme with kind support of the University of the Arts London, CSM doctoral programme.

project documentation

About the artist

Sława Harasymowicz is a visual artist based in the UK. After graduating from The Royal College of Art London she developed a body of work responding to Sigmund Freud’s foundational dream analysis of ‘Wolf Man’ through a published graphic novel and exhibition, and her interest in the relationship between book and site-specific installation practice is on-going. Harasymowicz had solo exhibitions at The National Poetry Library Southbank Centre, London, The Freud Museum London, The Ethnographic Museum of Kraków, Poland and others. Important awards include a double win at the V&A Museum Illustration Awards and the Arts Foundation Fellowship. She is currently completing a PhD at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London.