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Study Trip to Upper Silesia and Nowa Huta - 1

Study Trip to Upper Silesia and Nowa Huta

[ August 31st - September 3rd, 2005 ]
We generally associate Upper Silesia with high unemployment, closed mines, poverty, and a run-down industrial region. In addition, there is the German-Polish past, for Upper Silesia was an apple of discord between Germans and Poles throughout the twentieth century.
But how does the region deal with its historical and industrial heritage, how with its uncertain future? We think it worthwhile to look closely, to observe the change, in order to discover ambitious artists and art professionals in Upper Silesia. The region has long turned into a talent factory in the fields of music and graphic design, and the Silesian Dance Theatre in Bytom or the theatre in Katowice are anything but provincial. These developments attract far too little attention within and outside of Poland.

The second destination of our journey is Nowa Huta, a model city near Kraków, designed at the drawing board. Nowa Huta was hit particularly hard by the transformation of industrial society, as the end of socialism robbed the ideologised architecture its raison d’être. Thus the city seeks after new perspectives for the future and a new identity.

In the summer of 2005, Büro Kopernikus hosted a study trip to Upper Silesia for a small group of German journalists. You can find the articles that developed out of this journey by clicking Documentation (in German only).
Participants
German journalists

Visited Places
Upper Silesia, Nowa Huta

Dates
August 31st - September 3rd, 2005