Photography, graffiti and the Holocaust

Marianne Hirsh studies family memory and considers not only images of direct violence against Jews and violent spaces but also those of Jewish people who do not yet know what lies ahead, to be Holocaust photographs. But we do know this, which is why these photographs bear witness to the Holocaust. Do works of art inspired by Holocaust photographs also inherit this power? How does the choice of the medium of reproduction and the careless treatment of its nature change the historical memory it represents? These issues will be discussed in the lecture by analysing a micro-example – the graffiti project "The Walls Remember", carried out in Vilnius Old Town and other Lithuanian cities.

Rūta Statulevičiūtė-Kaučikienė is an art historian and lecturer at the Vilnius University Institute of International Relations and Political Science (IIRPS VU). She received her PhD in art history from Vytautas Magnus University. In 2021, she graduated from the Master’s programme in Politics and Media at the IIRPS VU. She is interested in historical memory, the relationship between politics and art, and political communication. She is a member of the editorial board of * as a Journal.

Portrait by Monika Požerskytė