Clive van den Berg, the designer of Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre’s permanent exhibition, talks us through the elements that went into creating a fully immersive experiences for visitors.
Empathy, a lack of ego and an understanding of how a visitor fits the exhibiting space were the tools of Clive van den Berg, designer of the permanent exhibition of the Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre in Westcliff, which opened officially last week.
Van den Berg, who is also a prominent fine artist, with a number of public art works and museums under his belt, including Freedom Park, relished this project. “The enormity of the raw material that had to go into this small space was terrifying. Eventually, we found a way.” But it was not all pragmatism. “There were many goose-bump moments for me. I met survivors. And their children. And in placing precious things with terrible histories, you touch people deeply.”
The exhibition follows a trajectory through the idea of genocide into pre-Holocaust Europe, where you get to understand what life was like for European Jewry before Hitler took hold. The scale is domestic. And then you round a corner and the demon of Nazism rears up before you. Further into the exhibition, where the murder of millions in the forests of Europe is represented, the display is taken all the way up to the ceiling, emulating the trees.
And the bricks? “They’re plastered in a style called English bond, which was used in Auschwitz’s gas chambers. It comprises red burnt bricks, alternatively lengthwise and cross-wise.”
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