Art of Remembrance: Contemporary Art in WW2 Memory
The exhibition ‘Art of Remembrance – Contemporary Art at the Heart of Memory’ will be on display at the Bastogne War Museum from 9th July to 23rd August 2026. This exhibition creates a dialogue between artistic creations and Memory of the Second World War. Through a sensitive and immersive experience, the museum offers the public a fresh way of engaging with History, making room for emotion, personal reflection and sometimes unexpected stories.
The exhibition brings together the artists Rebekka Bauer, Raphaël Dallaporta, Juhana Moisander and Gail Ritchie. It presents works created after residencies at several sites of remembrance across Europe: the Bastogne War Museum (Belgium), the Sybir Memorial Museum (Poland), La Coupole (France) and Paraloup (Italy). Glass installations, natural objects, photographs, videos and sound installations come together to form a rich and immersive whole, exploring fragile and ever-evolving forms of memory. In particular, the artists examine less known perspectives: the role of women in the resistance, family traditions, and the memory carried by landscapes and non-human beings.
THE artist IN residence IN bastogne, raphaël dallaporta
The exhibition at the Bastogne War Museum gets a special dimension through the work of French photographer Raphaël Dallaporta. As an artist in residence at the museum during the summer of 2025, he created works whilst engaging directly with the archives, the collections and the landscape shaped by the Battle of the Ardennes. In September 2025, he organised a workshop and a participatory ceremony attended by a witness to the Battle of the Ardennes and primary school pupils from the region. This immersive experience has now resulted in a creation closely linked to the site, offering a unique perspective on the visible and invisible traces of the conflict.
As part of a European collaborative initiative involving artists, historians and memorial institutions, Art of Remembrance is coordinated by Tempora and the LRE Foundation, with financial support from the European Union, the Municipality of Bastogne, the City of Nijmegen, the Province of Gelderland, Vfonds and the Mondriaan Fund. The project brings together several major partner sites, including La Coupole WWII Museum, the Nuto Revelli Foundation, the Bastogne War Museum and the Sybir Memorial Museum, all four of which will host this temporary, travelling exhibition throughout 2026.
Accessible to a wide audience thanks to multilingual content, the exhibition invites everyone to take a fresh look at the past, by combining contemporary artistic approaches with the challenges of preserving memory.