Atlantis

Reflective water surfaces, roots growing out of walls, doors opening into empty rooms. The images and objects in the exhibition tell stories of sunken worlds.

The loss of thousands of European settlements is one of the profound traumas and upheavals of the 20th and 21st centuries. The causes of depopulation and the abandonment of entire villages are manifold. They range from social, political, and demographic factors to natural disasters.

“Atlantis” is a series of exhibitions that traces the traces of past places in Southeast Europe. At the DZM, it commemorates settlements where German or other minorities once lived—culturally diverse villages and communities that no longer exist today. And with the places, their diversity also disappeared.

“Atlantis – Sunken Worlds” tells the story of Lindenfeld and Ada Kaleh in Romania, Gakovo/Gakowa and Kruševlje/Kruschiwl in Serbia, Stari Tabor/Alttabor and Novi Log/Neulag in Slovenia, Završje/Piemonte d’Istria in Croatia, and Derenk and Dolina in Hungary. Objects, stories, archive images, sound installations, and photographs by the photo artist Frank Gaudlitz bring them back to life.

The exhibition was realized in collaboration with the Coordination Office for Central and Southeast Europe at the Museum of European Cultures in Berlin, as well as with scientists, museums, and research institutions in Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, and Hungary.