Of Objects Familar and Unfamiliar
The aim of this article is to show that objects found, brought and produced in Wroclaw after the World War II have coexisted and entered mutual relations, alliances and wars. I argue that objects familiar and unfamiliar can be said to represent Ulf Hannerz’s idea of transnational connections and the process of creolization. Basing on the interviews and written reports I had conducted, I advance arguments that the interactions between objects from Breslau, Wroclaw and eastern borderlands have triggered the crystallization of a new historical, social and psychological order which can be referred to as a “creative cultural process”. Thanks to multicultural objects, their constant flow, exchange, inclusion and the changes in their function and meaning, Wroclaw has managed to maintain its material and symbolical diversity, or — as I argue — its hybrydical state as described by Hannerz. Material objects have made Wroclaw’s space familiar or — conversely — even more alienated, holding considerable psychological power which often decided about the fate of human beings and influenced their identity (also local identity) and subjective feeling of domestication.
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