Webinar | Hideouts. The Architecture of survival

The webinar will be held on Wednesday, October 25, 2023 at 6:00 pm CET on ZOOM platform under the following link: https://zoom.us/j/96175662479

During the webinar “Hideouts. The Architecture of survival” dr. Natalia Romik will provide an overview of her interdisciplinary artistic and historical research on remnants of Jewish hiding places during the Second World War. This includes locations such as the sewer system in Lviv, the interior of the Ozerna cave in Ukraine, the interior of the Józef tree in Podkarpacie, and the history of the grave-bunker at the Jewish cemetery on Okopowa Street in Warsaw. The lecture will focus on archival materials and local research conducted in Poland and Ukrain. It will also encompass historical analysis and a political science perspective on hiding during the occupation, as well as contemporary topics related to hideout architecture.

Dr. Natalia Romik is a graduate in political science, a practicing architect, and an artist. In 2018, she obtained her Ph.D. from the Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London for her thesis on “Post-Jewish Memory Architecture in Former Eastern European Shtetls.” She combines academic research with contemporary art and architectural methods. Romik has received numerous grants, including the London Arts and Humanities Partnership and the Gerda Henkel Stiftung. From 2007 to 2014, she collaborated with Nizio Design and was a consultant on projects such as the main exhibition at the POLIN Museum and the revitalization of the synagogue in Chmielnik. Romik is a member of the architectural collective SENNA, responsible for projects at the Museum of Upper Silesian Jews in Gliwice and the permanent exhibition at the Jewish Cemetery in Bródno, Warsaw, titled “Beit Almin – Eternal Home.”In 2018, she co-curated the exhibition “Strangers at Home: Around March 1968” at the Museum of the History of Polish Jews (POLIN). She is a member of the Association of Polish Architects and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah as part of the “Hideouts: The Architectural Analysis of the Secret Infrastructure of Jewish Survival during the Second World War” project. Her research culminated in the exhibition “Hideouts: Architecture of Survival,” which was presented in 2022 at the Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw and the Contemporary Art Center Trafo in Szczecin. In 2022, she received the Dan David Prize.

The moderator of the meeting will be Masza Makarova from the Warsaw Ghetto Museum Educational Department.

The meeting will be held in Polish with the simultaneous interpretation in English.

The meeting with Dr. Natalia Romik is a part of the series of monthly WGM webinars dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage