A Non-Event: Bombing of Poems over Dresden and the Difficulties of Performing German’s Victimhood

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Abstract

This article explores how the large-scale performance Bombing of Poems by the Chilean art collective Casagrande becomes a non-event after the rejection of its realisation in the sky of Dresden, Germany. Based on ethnographic methods and an engaged scholarship approach of the author, as well as primary and secondary sources, the article analyses how the poetics of the performance and its open-close condition unfolds a contested space with content yet to come. I argue that the Bombing of Poems transforms into the reverse of a military strategy that actualises the victimisation of the citizens and the urban space destroyed in the past. In this context, the conflict of dropping poems over Dresden rests in the performance as a space of remembrance of the air-bombardment, but also the more convoluted controversies lying behind the burning and destruction of the city in 1945.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)369-392
Number of pages24
JournalThird Text
Volume34
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - May 3 2020
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Bombing of Poems
  • Casagrande Collective
  • Cristobal Bianchi G
  • Sky-Remembrance
  • air-bombing
  • dresden
  • poetic­–event
  • public performance
  • victimhood

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Cultural Studies
  • Visual Arts and Performing Arts

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