Monika Gabriela Dorniak

MATTER INSOFAR AS IT IS SUBSTANCE. MATTER ACCORDING TO THE SENSES.

Interspecies Reflections On Intergenerational Trauma In Relation To WWII


In her fellowship, Dorniak continues her practice-based research on war-related intergenerational trauma, by specifically focusing on interspecies relationships.  While we generally refer to the historical atrocities of World War II in the past tense, they continue to impact human, non- and more-than-human agencies, resulting in a non-linear perception of temporalities (Shira Wachsmann, n.d.). The artistic research project aims to critically examine the interrelations between non-human archives of memory, war-related intergenerational trauma, and restorative interspecies collaboration on the example of contemporary sculpture, audio-visual score and performance practice.
The practice-based research is composed of three main components: the field study of two former World War II-sites (Eifel-Region of the northwestern Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany and Buchach, near the Strypa River in Chortkiv Raion of Ternopil Oblast of Western Ukraine) as memory archives of intergenerational trauma, the ethical involvement of non-human-entities in artistic production, and finally, the de-centralisation of the human, through a pluralisation of the ‘singular’ entity, in trauma studies. Whilst drawing from the atrocities in the 20th century, the research aims to highlight the continuity of temporalities, and “hauntological nature of quantum entanglements” (Karen Barad).
This research's three primary objectives include (1) the establishment of a relationship between the human, more-than-human and non-human study of intergenerational trauma, (2) to determine the impact of the dualistic human-environment separation on the treatment of war-related-traumata, (3) the analysis of the multiple “modes of implication” of non-human and human entities in pursuit of justice (Janus, Aleksandra, and Roma Sendyka, 2021).
In pursuit of the objectives, it is the aim of the research project to complete a written thesis and series of artistic works, that address the theme by involving non-human perspectives. In this context, the project highlights the capacity of audio-visual performance and sculptures to archive (lost) memories, and investigate how (human, non-human and more-than-human) bodies may act as transmitters of inter-generational trauma through their plural, porous anatomy.
 

The main supervisor of the project is Prof. Dr. Mona Schieren.