European Memories: Collecting, Constructing, Connecting Erasmus Project

Project Title

European Memories: Collecting, Constructing, Connecting

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

Project Summary

“European Memories – Collecting, Constructing, Connecting”Students from four different countries, Poland, France, Germany, and Ireland, studied and analyzed sources on World War One and created a ‘European archive’ not only to be reminiscent of the tragedies, the political, social and economic consequences, but also to become aware of the influence of that war on the development of Europe until today from different cultural perspectives.Students from the four different European countries worked together in internationally-mixed groups and gathered ideas and bits of information (collecting) on specific topics about WWI to design an archive (constructing). Our archive consists of wooden boxes into which the students put their project’s results, e.g. a portfolio, a created newspaper, symbolic artifacts, posters etc. This concept of ’memory boxes’ is an idea taken from the French artist Christian Boltanksi. Throughout the process of collecting information, analyzing pieces of memory, communicating about their findings, and planning the design of their historical boxes, our students worked together sustainably, and they actively and visibly combined different national perspectives on one European event (connecting).The students got the chance to increase their awareness of a central cultural European heritage by studying authentic sources from the time of WWI (newspaper articles, letters, photos, film shots…), comparing ideas of public memory in different languages, and analyzing examples of significant events during WWI in Germany, France, Poland and Ireland. Before our two project weeks in Germany and Ireland, they exchanged their specific results digitally via Facebook and Facetime and saved major documents in our drop box. During our project weeks, the students examined their results and planned how to present them artistically in their memory boxes for the exhibition at the end of the project week.In cooperation with the “Landschaftsverband Westfalen Lippe“ (LWL), our archive was opened in a ceremonial act in the museum “Henrichshütte Hattingen“ in February 2015. One year later, the archive was brought to Ireland, and the students worked on further topics to increase our European archive. It was opened in the Office of Public Works (OPW) in Trim in February 2016. In June 2016, the LWL offered us the opportunity to exhibit our archive „European Memories“ in their museum „Schiffshebewerk Henrichenburg“ to a wider audience.To keep our European archive ‘alive’ and to achieve a sustainable output by our project for the participating schools, the coordinating school installed a year-long presentation of the memory boxes in its school building, while the contents of the students’ boxes have been made digitally accessible on our facebook-page „European Memories – Erasmus+“ and the homepages of the participating schools.The archive has become a component of our project course „War and Peace in Europe“ (Year 11), as the students have to work with the archive in this course for their studies on World War One. Furthermore, the archive can be used in our arts lessons, as the artist Christian Boltanski and his idea of ’memory boxes’ is a topic in the syllabus guidelines in North Rhine-Westphalia.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 34600 Eur

Project Coordinator

Hittorf Gymnasium & Country: DE

Project Partners

• V Liceum Ogolnoksztalcace Mistrzostwa Sportowego im. Kamili Skolimowskiej
• Lycée des métiers Charles des Gaulle
• Scoil Mhuire Trim
• Wymondham High Academy Trust