Atlantik Walk

“Atlantik­wal­lk” (Atlantic Wall) is intend­ed to serve as a start­ing point with­in the con­text of the Euro­pean Cap­i­tal of Cul­ture event, offer­ing a fresh and pos­i­tive expe­ri­ence of Euro­pean his­to­ry and the present by explor­ing the Atlantic Wall through obser­va­tion, obser­va­tion, and lis­ten­ing. The project demon­strates how the dif­fi­cult bur­den of war, man­i­fest­ed here in archi­tec­tur­al form, can be addressed in such a way that, instead of being demol­ished and repressed, it becomes a site for crit­i­cal engage­ment. Through com­plex scenog­ra­phy and artis­tic appro­pri­a­tion, his­tor­i­cal, war-torn spaces are trans­formed into a sym­bol of Euro­pean under­stand­ing with­out los­ing their invalu­able sig­nif­i­cance as sites of remembrance.

The events and instal­la­tions have their own tem­po­ral­i­ty and scope: On a geo­graph­i­cal and polit­i­cal lev­el, the pro­jec­t’s sphere of influ­ence can be traced local­ly, nation­al­ly, and inter­na­tion­al­ly. The bunkers are a phe­nom­e­non of local rel­e­vance for res­i­dents and tourists, who have already begun to repur­pose the ruined struc­tures (e.g., as climb­ing struc­tures or kiosks). Fur­ther­more, bunkers are a com­mon fea­ture of the Nor­we­gian coast­line. Final­ly, the Nor­we­gian coastal for­ti­fi­ca­tion is part of the ​‘Atlantic Wall’, which con­tin­ues into Den­mark, the Nether­lands, France and Spain, thus cross­ing nation­al bor­ders – it is a Euro­pean phe­nom­e­non, a Euro­pean con­nec­tion, a trans­ver­sal and a bor­der to be redefined.