REcall Venice: Exploring disciplines of visual literacy through difficult cultural heritage

Tenna Doktor Olsen Tvedebrink, Anna Marie Fisker

& Hans Ramsgaard Møller

Abstract

According to James Elkin visual literacy is interpreted as material representations, which communicate knowledge and create

insight through their visual appearance. Based on the EU Cultural Heritage project ‘REcall’, we argue that visual literacy also

can relate to interdisciplinary knowledge rooted in architectural environments.

Our paper takes departure in the project ‘REcall’ that seeks to formulate a new role of the architectural environment based on

invigorated research on the cultural landscapes of WWI and WWII. Based on interdisciplinary workshops employing creative

approaches and tools; artists, architects, museologists and archeologists question the role of architectural environments when

dealing with war heritage. Today there are still traces left from WWII in the European architectural environments, traces that

by visual literacy represent unpleasant memories. However, these visual literacies have shaped our environment, yet, slowly

the collective memories are fading as the physical signs vanish. As time moves on, the visual literacies become merely fictive

if nothing is done to preserve them, but what knowledge should be told?

Our thesis is that there is a link between war memories and cultural identity. Our paper deals with the difficult war heritage,

and we explore how we can use visual literacy to move beyond the critical local context into general constructs, and further

how visual literacy is connected to the visual thinking. On the background of the ‘REcall Venice’ and ‘REcall Falstad’

projects, we advocate that new actions recalling the visual literacies might prevent knowledge from being forgotten. In order

to communicate meaningful knowledge about the past with caution and decency, we explore how this recalling is based on the

practical interdisciplinary process of “historicization” using the visual literacies rooted in the architectural environment to

interpret and reconstruct history, facts, form and fiction. A curriculum design in, or across disciplines connected to and through

visual literacy.

Key Words: Visual literacies, architectural environment, interdisciplinary, art, archaeology, museology, architecture, difficult

heritage, collective memory.

*****

1. REcall – an EU Cultural Heritage research project

This paper takes is point of departure in the EU Cultural Heritage research project ‘REcall’ that seeks to formulate a new

role of the architectural environment based on invigorated research on the cultural landscapes of WWII (REcall 2013).1 Today

there are still traces left from WWII in Europe that represent unpleasant memories. Slowly the memories and stories linked to

these traces are fading way, as the material evidence vanish. As time moves on, the stories become merely fictive if nothing is

done to preserve them. The overall idea behind REcall is that our collective memories are closely linked with our cultural

identity. The aim of the project is therefore to explore how history and memory can be reinterpreted through art, architecture,

archaeology and museology. The purpose of REcall is to bring together diverse theoretical, methodological, and operative

contributions on the interpretation of difficult cultural heritage. REcall therefore proposes an interdisciplinary approach that

joins traditional theoretical research from various disciplines with creative design practice. This interdisciplinary approach was

tested in two workshops in Venice in September 2012 and in Falstad in June 2013. Here young students were invited to work

in project teams comprising one architect, one archaeologist, one museographer, and one artist each questioning the role of

architectural environments when dealing with difficult cultural heritage. In that way, REcall opens up a new perspective

capable of turning the difficult cultural heritage of war conflicts into a resource for European identity construction (REcall

2013). However, the question is how to preserve these cultural landscapes? What is the purpose of preserving history and

difficult cultural heritage? There is a challenge in both re-appropriating the unpleasant memories, as well as to find a decent

way of telling them in the future. So, what knowledge should be told?

2. The perspective of Visual Literacy

In 2008 the art critic James Elkins drew attention to the importance of how we “read” images not just in the study of art

history, iconology, and visual culture, but also as „how people perceive objects, interpret what they see, and what they learn

from them’ (Elkins 2008:2). Relative hereto, Mitchell (2008:11) asks how ‘seeing is different from reading?’. The argument

made by Mitchell (2008) is that „reading‟ traditionally is understood as a visual skill involving visual recognition. Thereby the

ability to “read” something is closely linked to memory and the skills of remembering, whereas „seeing‟ is understood as a

basic, naturally acquired skill (Mitchell 2008). Mitchell (2008) thus argues that „seeing‟ is ’the basic abilities to distinguish

objects from the space in which they are located, to track a moving object, and to distinguish foreground and background,

figure and ground’ (Mitchell 2008:13). He emphasize how this perspective have led to the understanding that „seeing‟ is a

„visual system‟ or „universal language of nature‟ linked to our sensory perceptions (Mitchell 2008). Mitchell (2008) further

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notes how this „universal language of nature‟ traditionally have been claimed to differ from any spoken or written languages,

because they are cultural constructs which must be learned. His point is that so must the „visual system‟. The sensory stimuli

are not enough. We must all learn how to interpret our visual impressions. In that way our visual “reading” is always a mixture

of sensory and semiotic elements (Mitchell 2008). Mitchell (2008) continues this thinking by distinguishing between the

notions „picture‟ and „image‟. He argues that a „picture‟ is a material thing, whereas an „image‟ is an immaterial entity that

appears in the picture and survives in our memory (Mitchell 2008). The „image‟ thereby becomes a narrative or story ‘that can

be evoked’ (Mitchell 2008:17). Accordingly, Elkins (2008) argues that ‘theories concerning the visual nature of experience

have been proposed in art history, cognitive psychology, psychoanalytic criticism, anthropology, artificial intelligence,

neurobiology, neuropsychology, linguistics, and various branches of philosophy’ (Elkins 2008:vii). Still, he at the same time

emphasizes that, today, ‘the field of visuality at occasions have mainly been centered around digital media and museology’

(Elkins 2008:3). As Mitchell (2008), the key-point made by Elkins (2008) is that the term „visual literacy‟ can be interpreted as

material representations, which communicate knowledge and create insight through their visual appearance. The relevance of

that point is that „our sense of self, both individually and collectively, is made and remade in and through the visual’ (Elkins

2008:7). Therefore, it is fundamental that we understand „images‟ as social constructs and valuable learning apparatus‟ that can

help people think and act responsible in contemporary culture (Elkins 2008).

3. Architectural Environment and Cultural Landscapes

The idea, that there is a link between collective memories and cultural identity, in our opinion, touch on the essence of

form and space. As architects we are trained to “read” drawings, maps, plans, sections, elevations and buildings by means of

the ability to feel empathy with the represented design. You could also say that architects are trained to see the underlying

„image‟ rooted in the material objects and cultural landscape. We suggest that Elkins‟ (2008) and Mitchells‟ (2008)

interpretations of the notion ‟visual literacy‟ also can relate to the interdisciplinary knowledge rooted in the cultural landscapes

of WWII. It is therefore our thesis that „visual literacy‟ is an eminent first step for students from the different disciplines to

challenge traditional understandings of „reading‟ and „seeing‟ by deciphering the form and space of the architectural

environments and cultural landscape carrying traces of WWII.

Relative hereto, we reckon that few concepts have fascinated artistic imagination in the 20th

century as much as the notions

of form and space. Yet, the notion „space‟ did not enter architectural writings before the German artist Adolf von Hildebrand

and German art historian Auguste Schmarsow presented it around the turn of the 20th century (Frampton 2001). Though, the

preoccupation with the relationship between form and space arose already in the mid-18th

century. Here architects, artists,

historians and philosophers gradually rejected the idea that architecture was an art object and replaced it with an understanding

of architecture as space (Collins 1965). An entire branch of architectural theory developed, and today an impressive body of

literature devoted to these speculations exists. Among these contributions we want to highlight the theories of Schmarsow.

Although Schmarsow attacked other theorists speculating on the essence of form and space, such as German art historian

Heinrich Wölfflin and German architect Gottfried Semper of reducing architecture to the "act of dressing", Schmarsow was

greatly inspired by the writings of Semper (Frampton 2001). Frampton (2001) thus notes how Schmarsow between 1893 and

1914, identified space as the driving principle between all architectural forms (Tvedebrink 2013:150).2 The point is that,

whereas architectural thinkers before 1750 were primarily concerned with the ideals of the shape of the building as a solid

object with surfaces and a kind of structure, after the mid-18th century, these ideals transformed into an occupation,

particularly among German thinkers like Schmarsow and Semper, with the notion of space as the essential enclosing of “soul-

life” (Collins 1965) (Tvedebrink 2013:148). Collins (1965) states that such an understanding of architecture is only possible if

we consider the creation of space to be indistinguishable from the depiction of space. In line with Schmarsow he thus suggests

that the quality of the notion space lies in the understanding of our bodily encounter, perception and interpretation of these

spaces (Collins 1965) (Tvedebrink 2013:148). Or, with reference to the perspectives of Elkins (2008) and Mitchell (2008), we

could perhaps say; in the “reading” of the „images‟ and „visual literacies‟ rooted in these cultural landscapes. What is

important is that since the mid-18th century architects have assumed that architectural environments seduce us emotionally

and move us beyond place and time.

Regarding the REcall project, we would thus like to advocate that new actions recalling the visual literacies rooted in the

cultural landscapes carrying traces of WWII might prevent meaningful knowledge and collective memory from being

forgotten. However, in order to communicate meaningful knowledge about the past with caution and decency, we must

explore how this recalling is based on the practical interdisciplinary process of “historicization” using the visual literacies

rooted in the architectural environment to interpret and reconstruct history, facts, form and fiction. Therefore, in this paper, we

explore how we can use „visual literacy‟ to move beyond the critical local context into general constructs, and further how

„visual literacy‟ is connected to the visual thinking rooted in the architectural environments framing our difficult cultural

heritage.

4. Exploring disciplines of visual literacy through Difficult Cultural Heritage

During the period of 1933-1945 major parts of Europe underwent a series of radical changes as a result of extreme political

lines and dictatorships (Mallgrave & Contandriopoulos 2008). Common to those dictatorships were that most architectural jobs

were state appointments where politics dominated the visual appearance of a series of architectural environments and cultural

landscapes. For instance, Hitler and his Nazi-regime achieved supreme power, and the history of his ruling counts the building

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of several roads, railway stations, war shelters, concentrations camps and civic monumental buildings all over Europe

(Mallgrave & Contandriopoulos 2008). As mentioned above, today, there are still traces left from WWII and Nazi actions in

the European cultural landscape. Many of these traces carry material evidence of the war, but also hold valuable knowledge

rooted in the stories and collective memories linked to these landscapes. Since ancient times the development of memorial sites

and monuments have been used as a national inquiry fostering collective remembrance and representing national self-

understanding (Tietz 2008). Particularly during the late 19th

century and forth an entire branch of war museums, war

monuments and memorial sites evolved using architectural environments as material manifestations and symbolic marks on the

difficult cultural heritage. Museum exhibitions, monuments and memorial sites were used to present historical “evidence” and

“facts”, as well as even seduce the public in celebrating national values and honouring heroic acts (Tietz 2008). Today these

cultural landscapes have developed into popular tourist attractions often inviting the audiences to relive the difficult cultural

heritage through archival photos, videos and soundtracks of war actions taking place. The architectural environment of such

cultural landscapes become not only frames for the communication of the specific war events, the historical “evidence” and

“fact”, but also a stage inviting you to “recall” the sad memories and conflict emotions relating to the different actions. In that

way communicating valuable moral and ethical knowledge to future generations, but also in a very static way preserving the

difficult cultural heritage.

Nevertheless, many cultural landscapes carrying traces of WWII still exists which has not been turned into tourist

attractions. An example of this is the Nazi calle Arrow located in Venice. The Nazi calle Arrow is one of the very last signs of

the Nazi orientation system that still remains. It is found in a narrow pedestrian street near one of the most popular places in

Venice: Campo Santa Margherita. Here an arrow, painted on the building façade, showed the way to the

“Platzkommandantur” – which was the Nazi command located in Piazza San Marco from 1943-45 (Faccio et al. 2013). Many

prisoners had to pass here to reach the Nazi main head quarter on the way from the railway station to the central square. Today,

just a few steps away from the Nazi calle Arrow, a series of new yellow signs suggest different pathways to reach the railway

station or central square. But the Nazi arrow remains, almost illegible, on the old building as a fading memory (Faccio et al.

2013:9). The sign is in poor condition, and the way it has been deteriorated suggests that someone has intently tried to damage

it. Still, the sign clearly shows evidence of how it has also deliberately been preserved. The façade has been painted, but the

spot with the sign was never covered (Faccio et al. 2013). As one of the few visible remains of WWII, it is seemingly

important that it is preserved, as a reminder of a difficult period of time, contributing to Venice as it stands before us today

(Faccio et al. 2013:9).3 This visual trace could in line with the above theoretical thinking be understood as „visual literacies‟

that represent conflict memories. But, these „visual literacies‟ have also helped shaped the overall cultural landscape and

specific architectural environments into what they appear as today, and thereby also holds a valuable knowledge and collective

learning perspective.

5. REcall Venice: learning through the visual literacies of WWII

In the specific example of Nazi calle Arrow, the project team started out, methodologically, quite traditional with

information gathering and analyzing, by researching libraries, museums and cultural centers, as well as talking to several

Venetian residents of the area. Through these talks, the stories about the arrow started to build up (Faccio et al. 2013). But,

little information was gained, and the team realized that collecting and distributing historical information in the traditional way

would be a vast task, not suited for answering the overall question of how to preserve difficult cultural heritage (Faccio et al.

2013). However, the problem of their investigations seemed to be more a problem of the research approach chosen to develop

an answer that would be applicable to other such objects visualizing a vast amount of collective memory (Faccio et al. 2013:9).

The team, therefore, decided that their “answer” to the question of how to deal with difficult cultural heritage was to bring the

knowledge and memories into a more abstract level. They focused on telling the stories of the arrow based on what the sign

itself could tell them today and what questions it raised (Faccio et al. 2013). These stories were based on information gathered

subjectively – not verified or established as historical facts. In that way, the stories could only be characterized as fictive, thus

pointing to the dilemma that if nothing is done to preserve cultural heritage, the knowledge and memories related to the

material objects and visual literacies in our cultural landscapes might be twisted or disappear (Faccio et al. 2013). The teams‟

proposal was a restored version of the arrow sprayed on the pavement with water. With the water vaporizing in the warm air a

speeded up version of the disappearance of the sign on the wall was given (Faccio et al. 2013:13). The teams‟ proposal showed

a metaphor for the stories rooted in the collective memory disappearing over time. The true story might never be known, but

the efforts of the team and their proposal is an example of a decent solution that sprouts a thinking process about difficult

cultural heritage in the public, rather than just being a static tourist attraction. Thereby the project also initiated a discussion of

whether this would be a way to preserve difficult heritage? Can the artistic metaphor merging interdisciplinary knowledge keep

the stories alive? On the background of the REcall project, we would therefore like to advocate that new actions recalling the

„visual literacies‟ might prevent meaningful knowledge about the past from being forgotten in the future.

6. Concluding perspective

In the future, the interesting aspect, in our point of view, is not so much the direct communication of history – the use of

monuments, museums and memorial sites inviting people to reconstruct the past in details through historical “fact” and

material “evidence”. The Recall project is about exploring the potentials of communicating conflict memories through visual

literacies or what Mitchell (2008) also referred to as „images‟, and in that way let individual imagination develop the stories

that invite for a broad range of experiences and emotions. The intention is not to “aestheticize” the past or turn violent actions

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into “beautiful” objects. On the contrary, it is questioning the contemporary way of handling difficult cultural heritage and

conflicting memories as static “facts” and “evidence”. On the background of the example of Nazi calle Arrow we would like to

emphasise that history is complicated and point at how difficult cultural heritage often have more than one “layer”. The theory,

method and practice of the four disciplines – Archaeology, Art, Architecture and Museology, approach cultural heritage

differently. They describe, analyze, and explain these “layers” of the cultural landscape very differently. With the

interdisciplinary approach and project teams the REcall project examines the options and possibilities that lay in the mix of

disciplines. The interdisciplinary approach merges different perspectives, share knowledge, combine methodologies,

collaborate, discuss and debate. In that way REcall showed to be a good forum for discussing ethical approaches and creative

process. But also a forum, were new layers of cultural heritage were unfolded and a different version of how to communicate

history emerged. The interdisciplinary approach thereby initiated a revaluation of the role of deeply rooted intuition,

imagination, sensitivity, but at the same time brought new values to the transmission of knowledge. With these examinations

REcall regards cultural heritage as a dynamic process, involving the declaration of our memory of past events and actions that

have been refashioned for present day purposes such as identity, community, legalisation of power and authority. On the

background of the EU Cultural Heritage project REcall and the work with Nazi calle Arrow, we would therefore like to argue

that „visual literacy‟ can also relate to interdisciplinary knowledge rooted in architectural environments and cultural landscape.

And we suggest that such interdisciplinary collaboration can be used to investigate new possibilities where „visual literacies‟

foster a transformative architecture re-interpreting the past, rather than monumental memorial sites and war museums

preserving the past in a static way. A curriculum design in, or across disciplines connected to and through visual literacy.

7. Acknowledgements

The authors of this paper would like to thank the residual main partners from the REcall – EU Cultural Heritage research

project; project leader Gennaro Postiglione from Politecnico di Milano, Wolfgang Weileder and Irene Brom from Newcastle

University, and Marek Jasinski from Trondheim University, for their collaboration, high spirits and extensive knowledge

shared with us during the REcall-workshops. But also the two external partners; Viviana Gravano from Routes Agency Rome

in Italy and Tone Jorstad from Falstad Centre in Norway, for providing us with the opportunity to explore the difficult cultural

heritage in practice.

Notes

1 REcall benefits from the conjoined action of a Consortium of four main Partners: Politecnico di Milano (POLIMI) with

Museography, Trondheim University (NTNU) with Conflict Archaeology, Newcastle University (UNEW) with Fine Arts, and

Aalborg University (AAU) with Architecture (for further information on the project see www.recall-project.polimi.it).

2 The reason, according to Eck (2004:63), why architectural theoreticians today see Schmarsow, and not Semper, as one of the

developers of the idea of architecture as space, is that the art historian Alois Riegl (1858-1905) misrepresented Semper as a

materialist. Eck (2004:63) argues that in his writings, Riegl accused Semper of reducing the meaning of architecture to an

expression of materials, techniques and functions (Tvedebrink 2013:162). Schmarsow‟s lecture followed closely the

publications of Riegl, which reflect the role of space and the significance of its expression, embraced the role of the psyche and

accepted the attributes of the body in our perception of space (Holt-Damant 2005). In this work Riegl sought to refute the

materialist account of the origins of decorative motifs from and instead attempted to describe a continuous and autonomous

"history of ornament" (Holt-Damant 2005).

3 For examples of cultural landscapes carrying traces left from WWII in Venice, Falstad and Rome please see the webpage:

www.recall-project.polimi.it

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Authors

Tenna Doktor Olsen Tvedebrink, b. 1981, is M.Sc. in Civil Engineering with specialization in Architecture from Aalborg

University, Department of Architecture, Design and Media Technology in 2008. But further holds a series of single master

courses in sensory science, consumer science, molecular gastronomy and food sociology from Copenhagen University,

Departments of Human Nutrition and Department of Food Science. Tenna Doktor Olsen Tvedebrink is today PhD fellow at

Department of Civil Engineering, Aalborg University in hospital eating environments. Her main research areas are

Architectural Interiors, Eating Environments, and Healthcare Architecture.

Anna Marie Fisker, b. 1957, Architect MAA, is PhD, Ass. Professor at Department of Civil Engineering at Aalborg

University where she holds the position as Head of Division. Besides working with architecture, interior and design she is very

passionate about the relation between food + design. Anna Marie Fisker is also Director of Center for Food Science, Design &

Experience at University of Aalborg, and member of the Ph.D. Board in Interior Architecture and Exhibit Design, at

Politecnico di Milano, Italy. She is the author of more than 100 scientific publications, and has been curator on several projects

at the Architectural Biennale in Venice. Recently she is the founder of a new research group at Aalborg University:

Architecture plus Interior.

Hans Ramsgaard Møller, b. 1987, is B.Sc. Eng. in Architecture, and currently assistant at Architecture plus Interior,

Department of Civil Engineering at Aalborg University, as well as writing his master‟s thesis in architecture at the Department

of Architecture & Design, Aalborg University. He has been working at Stæhr Architekten in Berlin, and has a deep felt interest

in architecture and architectural theory. As assistant at A+I he has contributed to research and writings of scientific papers on

the subjects of architectural theory, handling of WWII heritage, and interdisciplinary work.