The long-term project, “Across the Schwedtsee”, is devoted to the history of the Ravensbrück Women’s concentration camp, which was exclusively for female political prisoners. It reflects on the artistic legacy of its former prisoners and the natural environment of the location. Located 90 km north of Berlin, it is hidden in the woods beside the lake Schwedtsee. Women and children from more than 30 countries were imprisoned there (including women from Poland, Germany, Austria, the Soviet Union, France, the United Kingdom, and many more). Among the prisoners, there were artists who captured the camp’s life in drawings and sketches.

As part of the project, I’ve been working with the archive and media collection of the Ravensbrück National Memorial, as well as with my own photographs and videos. Combining the photographs taken of the camp and its surroundings and the drawings by Violette Lecoq, Félicie Mertens, Aat Breur, Nina Jirsíková, Eliane Jeannin, and others, I try to find a new perspective on the story of these women and the prisoners, and am attempting to build a dialogue between generations by creating a series of visual works in which the past manifests itself through the present. Also, I’m focused on the changes that have happened to the natural environment around the camp, the woods and the lake in particular.

If the memorial is a space for reflection on the tragedy that took place decades ago, what status does the forest have? What did the trees see? Where are these signs that tell us that the forest was part of the tragedy and carries the memory of the traumatic events of the past? Being an integral part of this suffering, the forest is located outside the wall of the camp and the territory of the memorial and is neglected and forgotten. It lies between the residential sector, the memorial, and the former female guards' houses which have now been converted into a Youth hostel. Thus, using drawings, I try to bring these markers into the forest space, and make an attempt to manifest the place itself, the memory that it carries. It gives an insight into how we deal with historical memory years later, and how the camp location is used now.