In this workshop you will have the opportunity to deal with the little-known history of colonial soldiers in the First World War and their mission on the side of the colonial powers. The colonial soldiers fought not only in the former colonies of the colonial powers, but were as well sent to the front in Europe. Alone 200.000 colonial soldiers fought on the French side, among them the Tirailleurs sénégalais.
As a matter of fact, the presence of soldiers and workers from the colonies lead to intense controversies during the Great War. It stirred polemics that reached their peak shortly after the end of the war, when in the French-occupied Rhineland colonial troops were stationed. In response, German authorities and politicians launched a racist campaign against the colonial soldiers – known as the ‘Schwarze Schmach’ or ‘black disgrace’.
The aim of the workshop is to create an exhibition that will be presented during the HistoryCampus. The material from which the exhibition is to be created consists of comics. These comics, that address the stories of colonial soldiers in the First World War, have been drawn by comic artists in a workshop in February. With the help of an exhibition organiser, it is your job to give this material an order and to develop different parts of the final exhibition (information boards, audio clips, interviews, texts, photos, etc.) to contextualise and complement the (comic) exhibition of the artists.
For this workshop you should have an interest in working with historical material, in writing or dictating of texts and an interest in the conception of an exhibition.
Workshop speakers:
Elisabeth Desta, Institute for Applied History – Society and Science in Dialogue, Frankfurt (Oder), Externer Link: www.instytut.net/en
Christian Schmidt, Zeitläufer, Leipzig, Externer Link: www.zeitlaeufer.de