Ihr und Wir
Great national exhibition
The exhibition was not intended to focus on the suffering caused by flight and expulsion, but on the arrival and integration of more than 1.5 million displaced persons and refugees in southwestern Germany after the Second World War. This task was solved by the highly symbolic form of the house as a place of protection, security and the center of life – in short: the home. Instead of conventional showcases, 28 desks with glass roofs form a “field of encounters” in the main room. Each of these small “exhibition houses” uses objects, text, and film and sound recordings to tell stories of integration and the encounter between citizens and newcomers in the most diverse areas of society. With the help of mirrors on the walls of the room, the number of exhibition houses multiplies. An optical trick that does not serve an end in itself here, but underlines that the fates described here are also representatives – for hundreds of thousands more.