Archive | Special exhibition | Hangar 5
Archive | Special exhibition | Hangar 5
Of heroizations and heroisms
Heroes do not make themselves – they are created through social attributions. This is the essence of ‘Prinzip Held*’. This is not just another exhibition about heroes, but an exploration of the reasons why people are made by others into heroes or heroines. Visitors do not encounter the usual heroic narratives, but instead explore how heroization works.
In 44 compelling case studies, the exhibition illustrates different processes of heroization using interactive installations. What, for example, made the Chinese doctor Li Wenliang a hero early on in the coronavirus pandemic? Why did Claus von Stauffenberg become a symbolic figure in the German resistance to Nazism? From Europe to North America and Asia, from the past to the present, the exhibition shows that heroes and heroines are not born – they are made by us.
Whether soldiers on deployment, sporting icons, parents, or even deserters and climate activists – they can all become heroic role models for certain people in specific places and at particular times.
Heroes and heroines push boundaries, redefine norms, fight, and unite some people while excluding others. Social needs are embodied in heroic figures – needs to which heroes and heroines give expression. Nine building blocks are always involved in this process of heroization: medial representation, role modelling, polarization, transgression, agency, conflict, commitment, masculinity and, above all, the audience.
Visitors experience the power of the audience’s role in the ‘Hero*Machine’. Only when they work together to operate 20 levers does a larger-than-life artwork take shape. Without their participation, nothing happens – just as in the making of heroes.
This unique exhibition is the result of a collaboration between Collaborative Research Centre SFB 948 at the University of Freiburg, the Bundeswehr Centre of Military History and Social Sciences (ZMSBw) and the Military History Museum at Berlin-Gatow Airfield. It was designed and presented by the Berlin-based theatre company Rimini Protokoll and the scenographer Dominik Steinmann.
