‘Memories of a beloved Place‘
1990. A whole people collectively decides to virtually disappear. After 850 years almost all Transylvanian Saxons, a German minority I belong to, left Romania after the collapse of Communism and migrated ‘back‘ to Germany. Over the course of centuries Transylvania first belonged to Hungary, then Austria respectively to Austria-Hungary, finally becoming part of Romania in 1918, with a multi-cultural population of Romanians, Hungarian Saxons, Roma, Jews and so on. The economic situation of the Ceausescu Era and the assimilation policy towards minorities played a considerable part in this decision.
My work deals with exile and remembrance and takes place in an individual, as well as collective context. I went back to the Place I once called home.
MONA SIMON
