Odra-Oder. History, Present, and Future of a European Cultural Area
[ Exhibition ]
Oder-Panorama | Panorama Odry. Images of a European riverTime and again there have been exhibitions on the Oder. In the Oder region's city museums, regional museums, and museums of local history, the river is naturally a frequent theme.
Yet in none of these exhibitions the Oder is presented as a whole, but rather in regional or national sections.
Together with the European University Viadrina, Büro Kopernikus has developed an exhibition that – like the Oder conference – is devoted to the whole river, from source to mouth. The aim of the exhibition is the visual reconstruction of the Oder region by means of existing river perspectives. For this purpose, Oder exhibitions from the cities along the river are being analysed and merged under an integrated exhibition concept. The overarching question is whether the Oder as a whole exists, has existed or will exist.
The focus will be on seventeen cities: Olomouc, Ostrava, Oderberg, Kosel, Ratibor, Opole, Brzeg, Wrocław, Głogów, Bytom, Nowa Sól, Krosno, Frankfurt on the Oder, Kostrzyn, Schwedt, Szczecin, and Eisenhüttenstadt-Fürstenberg.
The exhibition is to take up the following aspects of life by the river and with the river: the Oder as a natural landscape; flood water and flood control measures; canalisation, embankments, and navigation technology; life on the Oder, skippers’ traditions; ethnic and religious affairs in the Oder region – in its history and today; political conditions in the Oder region since the Middle Ages; the Oder as a border, the Oder as a bridge; perspectives of the Oder region in an integrating Europe; initiatives for the Oder, plans for the Oder.
From the very beginning the exhibition was conceived to be presented in other towns on the Oder, too. The first station after Frankfurt will be Lubin where the exhibition is on display at the Centrum Kultury Muza between 5 August - 15 September 2006.
Images on this page: on the left: Bytom Odrzański, source: Muzeum Nowa Sól, on the right: Frankfurt on the Oder, source: Herder Institut Marburg
