SCRIPTS doctoral researchers Johannes Heß and Tobias Klee at the exhibition "Europäische Resonanzen: Eduard Bigas überträgt Josep Pla in die Gegenwart"
Johannes Heß and Tobias Klee during the talk
One hundred years after the Catalan author and journalist Josep Pla travelled and reported on post-war Europe, the Delegation of the Government of Catalonia to Germany opened an exhibition on his work, reimagining his writings through the artistic lens of Catalan artist Eudard Bigas. On June 20th, 2024, the artist (who hails from Pla’s hometown of Palafrugell), gave a tour through his works, in which he interpreted Pla’s impressions with collages, montages, and drawings. The images draw on parallels between Pla’s time and ours: inflation, nationalism, and violent dictatorships.
News from Jul 03, 2024
After the tour, Johannes Heß and Tobias Klee (research project “Gender, Borders, Memory”) gave a talk contextualising the artworks and parallels. Tobias Klee introduced the conflicts plaguing 1920s Spain/Catalonia, Germany, and USSR, places which Pla had visited and written about. Klee focused on the economic, social, and political crises these societies experienced, and that Pla would have witnessed. Johannes Heß took the contemporary perspective, outlining the causes of the present-day crises and how they differ from the historical crises that Pla described. In their conclusion, both made clear that the causes, development, impact of, and potential remedies to the crises we witness historically and in the present day are quite different. The value of viewing these parallels through art is to deliver a critique to our present political moment, to understand and challenge the issues we face in the modern world.