Art of Remembrance opens at the House of Nijmegen History on March 10, presenting contemporary artworks created through artist residencies at World War II remembrance sites across Europe. The exhibition will be on view until early April 1st. 2026.
The exhibition features work by four artists – Rebekka Bauer, Raphaël Dallaporta, Juhana Moisander, and Gail Ritchie – each of whom undertook a residency at a European remembrance site: the former resistance stronghold of Paraloup, Italy; the Bastogne War Museum, Belgium; the Sybir Memorial Museum, Poland; and La Coupole WWII Museum, France. During their residencies, the artists engaged closely with archives, historians, landscapes, and local communities, producing works that reflect a wide range of media, including glass installations, sculptural and natural objects, photography, and immersive video and sound.
The artists approach memory as fragile and ongoing and their works highlight often invisible perspectives: women’s roles in resistance and survival, family-based remembrance, non-human witnesses such as animals and landscapes, and the slow absorption of trauma by bodies and places. Rather than depicting historical events and war violence directly, the works rely on suggestion, metaphor, and material presence, inviting attentive reflection and emotional engagement.
The exhibition in Nijmegen places these works within a city profoundly shaped by wartime destruction and postwar reconstruction, fostering a dialogue between broader European histories and lived local experience. A public and educational programme runs alongside the exhibition, including an artist meet-up on 10 March and a public opening on 12 March. The latter begins with a lecture at the public library by British writer and historian Keith Lowe at 19:00, followed by a visit to the exhibition. Together, these events offer audiences the opportunity to engage directly with the artists’ processes and artworks, and to reflect on the forms memory can assume in the contemporary world.
The project is funded by the European Union and presented in Nijmegen thanks to the support of the City of Nijmegen, the Province of Gelderland, vfonds, and the Mondriaan Fund. Project partners include Tempora, LRE Foundation, La Coupole Museum, Nuto Revelli Foundation, City of Bastogne and the Sybir Memorial Museum.
