Sonya Schönberger
Artist, Berlin
Gast 2020
Studienwoche Kunst
Sonya Schönberger combines her studies of Social Anthropology and Experimental Media Design in her artistic practice. In the last eleven years she has built up a long-term archive for which she conducted private conversations in various countries with witnesses of the Second World War. With the help of this “Archive of Memories” she examines the effects of a nation’s traumas on future generations. She also works with existing archives like the estate of André Müller, a journalist documenting the post war period in West Germany by critically collecting influential voices, or the finds from an archeological dig on Tempelhofer Feld in Berlin, uncovering the remnants of a former prisoner of war camp.
In cooperation with the Stadtmuseum Berlin, she initiated and carries out a video archive that focuses on and highlights the narratives within the German capital through individual memories, experiences and opinions. The archive has started in 2018 and is looked at as a growing entity for hundred years.
Next to these long-term explorations, she widened her focus by looking at plants that have been violated under colonial expansion and the impacts of this up until today. She consciously and depending on the project uses different media such as photography, theater, film, installation or audio formats.
