News from Berlin

News from Berlin – This August the world is commemorating the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War. The ongoing exhibition "The biggest disaster in human history - Latin America and the First World War" draws attention to the non-European aspects of the war, and gives visitors an insight into its impact on the remote continent. The exhibition is the outcome of a co-operation between the Ibero-American Institute, the Latin America Institute of the Freie University Berlin and the Einstein Foundation Berlin; and can be visited until September 19th at the Ibero-American Institute.

The aim of the exhibition is to give the perspective of a region that, despite the huge geographical distance, was culturally, politically and economically intertwined with Europe during the war. Texts of well-known Latin American personalities and images are displayed that describe this phase of the history. Besides historical documents and paintings, reports about the everyday life of immigrants, workers, women and soldiers are shown, representing the human side of the conflict. One particular focus of the exhibition is the art of the political caricature that became influential at the time given the global propaganda-war.  

The curator of the exhibition is history professor Stefan Rinke from the Latin America Institute (LAI) of the Freie University of Berlin. Rinke is currently working as Research Fellow at the Einstein Foundation Berlin in Latin America, conducting research on the very topic of the exhibition. Visitors can see the exhibition in the reading room of the Ibero-American Institute, Potsdamer Str 37, 10785 Berlin.

News from Berlin – Berlin Global