Post-witness, counter-bystander and the (unclaimed) experience
Selected videos by Miroslaw Bałka are discussed within the theoretical frame of witnessing and post-witnessing. The concepts of a bystander, counterpublic witness and implicated subject allow understanding the artist’s standpoint toward Holocaust bystanders in Poland. Localized experience of the past violence is analyzed in the article in relation to trauma theory but trauma is understood here beyond the individual level, as a shared, cultural and social experience.
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