Special Closing Event Celebrating Joanna Bator’s Stay in Bern at the Polish Embassy, Bern
We kindly invite you to a special event at the Polish Embassy, Bern, concluding and celebrating Joanna Bator’s stay as Guest Professor at the University.
The session will consist of three parts. First, there will be a short presentation of what Joanna undertook with her students during the semester. Not only the concept of Godzilla will be presented, but also different misfit categories, the concept of the Uncanny, and heterotopias.
Second, we will come back to Godzilla or he will come back to us – because he is always somehow present. But we shall approach him from a more local perspective. We will try to answer the question of whether there is a Swiss Godzilla. Joanna and her students will then complement a Bernese Godzilla, drawn by the Polish artist Pola Dwurnik during the semester, with their own experiences of misfits, the Uncanny, and heterotopias.
Finally, the event will be followed by a drinks reception, sponsored by the Polish Embassy.
Joanna Bator was born in Wałbrzych, Poland, in 1968. She graduated in cultural studies and philosophy. Her debut novel was Kobieta (in English: A Woman), written in 2002. Until 2011 she was a university lecturer and lived for several years in Japan, where she wrote Piaskowa Góra (2009; in English: Sandy Mountain; the German translation, Sandberg, was published by Suhrkamp in 2011). The story of three generations and its sequel Chmurdalia (in English: Cloudalia; German translation, again with Suhrkamp: Wolkenfern) of 2013 was highly acclaimed and established her as one of the most important voices of ontemporary Eastern European literature. In 2013, her most recent novel, Ciemno, prawie noc (2012), won the Nike Literary Award (Nagroda Literacka Nike), the most prestigious award for Polish literature. In 2014 she won the Spycher Literaturpreis Leuk (CH).
Pola Dwurnik, visual artist and art historian. She was born in 1979 in Warsaw and has been working mainly with oil painting, gouache, various drawing media and mail art. She has been also active as a self-publishing artist, essayist and editor. In 2004 she graduated from the University of Warsaw. In 2004 and 2005 was a resident of Stiftung Laurenz-Haus in Basel. In 2010 was a resident of a mobile art platform The Knot in Berlin, Warsaw and Bucharest. Her works were included in showns in CCA Zamek Ujazdowski in Warsaw, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, MOCAK Museum for Contemporary Art in Kraków, The Contemporary Museum in Wrocław, Kunstsalon Bel Etage in Berlin, Galeria Arsenał in Białystok, Galeria Lokal 30 in Warsaw and in many others in Poland and abroad.
Lives and works in Berlin and Warsaw.
