Walking-with, re-membering the Holocaust: Forced Walks: Honouring Esther, a case study of somatic and digital creative practice

Abstract

ABSTRACT The paper discusses a walking and multi-media arts project seeking to renew agency in Holocaust testimony and generate contemporary resonances. Forced Walks is a programme of speculative, socially engaged experiments, initiated by artists Richard White and Lorna Brunstein. Honouring Esther (2015–2017), the first Forced Walks project, walked the route of a Nazi Death March digitally transposed to Somerset (UK), subsequently retracing it in Lower Saxony, Germany. The project engaged walkers in co-creating an immanent reflective space materialized in mark-making, social media and installation. An emergent hybrid somatic/digital process, ‘making the return’ in a specific Holocaust context, is presented.