Ewa Trafna

Ewa Trafna, Uta Schorlemmer, Alfrun Kliems, Will Wittig, Aleksandra Hirszfeld

In the last three decades a "new physiognomy of the continent" arose (Schlögel 2005). The breakdown of structures caused by political and, more importantly, economic developments gave Ewa Trafna during a visit to Detroit the impulse to artistically engage with her experiences of abandoned property, industrial wastelands, and the standstill of urban communication in previously thriving cityscapes. Overseas, the artist experienced something that was familiar to her both biographically and from the fate of Polish and German cities like Warszawa, Łódź, Bytom, Wałbrzych as well as Oberhausen, Bitterfeld, Eisenhüttenstadt and Berlin (Oberschöneweide). Trafna's series, originating from the memory of Detroit- although it is by all means also currently a geopolitical burning issue-expresses in a universal way how architecture bears witness to an era, both its successful times and its setbacks....