Wartifacts. Long-term Conflict and its Transformation into Fine Arts and Arts and Crafts. A Case Study on Two (more than) Thirty Years’ Wars in Central Europe (1618 - 1648) and Afghanistan (1979 – today)
Wartifacts. Long-term Conflict and its Transformation into Fine Arts and Arts and Crafts. A Case Study on Two (more than) Thirty Years’ Wars in Central Europe (1618 - 1648) and Afghanistan (1979 – today)

Author(s): Till Ansgar Baumhauer
Subject(s): Sociology of Art
Published by: Universitatea Petrol-Gaze din Ploieşti
Keywords: wartifact; war studies; cooperative works; installative artwork; war rhetoric;
Summary/Abstract: Wars have always deeply influenced self estimation and cultural identities of societies involved in them. Long-term conflicts play a crucial role in this context, because after 30 years of war or longer, at least one generation of people without any experience of peace has grown up and provides the people ruling the country´s future perspectives. Fine arts, mirroring the situation of societies, give a lot of (somewhat indirect) information on the way how war is experienced and reflected. My research perspective mainly focuses on artefacts not used for governmental power or political propaganda and self representation. According to recent theories from the field of war studies, conflict structures in early modern societies in the Thirty Years´ War are astonishingly similar to those that can be found in today´s Afghanistan. So, there is a stunning possibility to openly discuss these both fields of long-term conflict (from two very different cultural and religious backgrounds). On this foil, also the visual (artistic) output of these two conflicts can be seen and discussed together. Aspects like textiles with war motives, paintings on afghan rickshaws and contemporary afghan art are confronted with European votive objects, print series on war topics and “Kunstkammer” objects. The “WARTIFACTS” (derived from “war/ artefacts”) project is a Ph. D thesis in fine arts consisting as well of artistic work as of research in the fields of ethnology, art history and everyday´s culture. It is based on reflections in the field of artistic research and follows in the meantime classical scientific discourse strategies. The artwork itself consists on one side of cooperative works with Afghan artists and carpet makers and on the other side of installative artwork dealing with war rhetoric and the translatability of historical (European) cultural heritage into Afghan-Persian cultural contexts and the other way round.

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