Event

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

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

“Atlantis” is an exhibition series that traces the traces of places long gone 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 along with these places, their diversity also vanished.

“Atlantis – Sunken Worlds” tells the stories 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, as well as Derenk and Dolina in Hungary. Objects, stories, archival images, sound installations, and photographs by the photographic artist Frank Gaudlitz bring them back to life.

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