3. Passing Bye

Hanna Trampert

This chapter retells an autobiographical journey of Hanna Trampert, an artist who was born in Poland during the Cold War but frequently visited her family members in the Eastern borderlands of Germany. Growing up in a divided world, the themes of borders, freedom, and fear have accompanied Hanna throughout her life and have also been reflected in her artwork. This chapter is a reflection on Hanna’s work since 2019. Inspired by her participation in the Reconnect/Recollect project, it focuses on the theme of connection(s). The experience of working with childhood memories has created an opportunity to see—and make visible—the existing connections and entanglements that have always existed despite walls and borders.

My parents come from the Eastern borderlands of Germany, a territory lost to the Soviet Union after World War II. In the 1950s, my parents emigrated to Gdynia on the Baltic Sea in Poland, where I was born in 1963. Most of my family stayed behind the border, and we visited them every year. These journeys were associated with complicated procedures: applying for invitations and passports, standing in line, enduring long daytime and nighttime train journeys with frightening border controls. The visits to the beloved grandma and aunts were very warm, but they were also very demanding. The towns and villages looked unlike Baltic Poland, the smells and the dishes were different from those at home, and many women wore headscarves. There was so much to watch and observe. Although I did not dare to speak in the foreign language, I learned Russian passively on these visits and, later, in school, I already knew everything taught in language lessons. In socialist Poland, my father was a party member and often told us that silence was golden, that it was best not to say anything outside of home. In 1986, the borders were closed, and travelling to the West became illegal. The theme of borders, freedom, and fear have since accompanied me and have also been reflected in my artwork.

My participation in the Reconnect/Recollect memory workshops in Berlin and their interest in childhood memories set something in motion that caused a change in my thinking about boundaries. I have noticed that not only is silence golden but so, too, is talking. Both the narration and sharing of the small, seemingly unimportant moments from my childhood and the showing of the memorabilia during the workshop produced an outgrowth echoed in my paintings.

The mood in many of my earlier works might be described as one of being ‘behind the wall’. In the new works created after the workshop in Berlin, the theme of connection(s) began to play a role and was reflected in a different mood. I see new relationships with myself and others. Being part of a group caused the walls to fall away and new communities and dialogues to emerge in their place. In some pictures, this shift is reflected in the childlike lightness, the beauty of nature, and the tangible quality of light-heartedness. I was able to participate in this project as a non-English speaker, for which I am grateful. This new experience showed me that it is possible to belong despite a language barrier. With the help of interpreters and translators, I have become a part of this project, and my paintings speak for themselves. Here I show some examples of my works from 2019 onwards.

A blue painting in portrait format. Scattered in its center are eight metal ball bearings of approximately 3/4 cm in size. Written in red block lettering in the lower portion of the piece are the Polish words for ‘What Connects Us.’ Situated to the left of the writing is pasted is an iamge of a girl’s head with red wavy hair.

Fig. 3.1 Hanna Trampert, Was uns verbindet, 2019, 80×60 cm.

The first artwork of the project Reconnect/Recollect was created after our initial, online exchange of childhood memories. It is an assemblage with ball bearings that symbolise a movable and smooth connection with other countries and continents. At this early point, I already felt part of this far-reaching program. My signature logo on the artwork—the girl’s face—is one of these connections.

A square painting, a collage in blue, green, red, and light pink hues. It depicts a dark blue circle; in it, at the top, one finds a smiling face. Pasted within the circle are photographs of trains, streets, cars, and traveling people. Distributed at the top of the painting are red lines, which appear to be rails.

Fig. 3.2 Hanna Trampert, Travel in Space and Time, 2019, 100×100 cm.

This artwork was created based on the memory workshops in Berlin, and it tells about our meeting, our stories, and our memories. The piece is a collage made with my old stamps and my photos of Gdynia, Vilnius, and the trains. It captures the journeys, the connections, the tracks, the faces. Maybe you see the tunnel that appears in the ghost-train story and the light when you leave the tunnel. The history of the train was told by the GDR historian Anja Werner and the West Berlin social anthropologist Sarah Fichtner (see Chapter 15). The image has its dynamics, has many layers of experience, is circular, like recurring memories, like the time clock. Part of the red colour in the image stores the light during the day and glows at night. This is a symbol of the memory project: it is a form or process that makes old memories visible.

A horizontal picture shows seven women in long dresses. The women have their backs turned to the viewer and walk on the blue and yellow hill. In the background is the blueish pink sky. Three of the women point their hands forward. The scarf of one of the women moves gently in the wind.

Fig. 3.3 Hanna Trampert, End of the Day, 50×100 cm.

Women and children form a small community walking at sunset. The piece has a cheerful mood and light colours.

The picture has a light blue background with eight dark blue figures standing next to each other. The figures have realistically drawn faces, and stick figures as their bodies and hands. The figures are of different sizes and ages, and look in different directions. The hands of most of them are touching.

Fig. 3.4 Hanna Trampert, Together, 2019, 70×90 cm.

Together (Figure 3.4) is the cover picture for my exhibition ‘Expedition Mensch’, which took place in 2020 at the Catholic Family Education Center Ehrang e. V. I felt the need to represent physical contact, the touching of people’s hands.

A square picture with a strong blue background. Visible is a smiling face on intensely light green color. Flowing onto the green area are peachy, orange, and pink colors. The colors suggest a city, lights, electric trains, or something which is about to disintegrate.

Fig. 3.5 Hanna Trampert, Memory 1, 2020, 100×100 cm.

As if in a vehicle or a boat, memories are on the move. They are subject to constant transformation, especially when they get to the surface. Connections build up and collapse. In the background, there is a quiet person who is remembering and contemplating. She has a benevolent look, a smile. The colours here are fresh and intense, matching how children see and experience the world. Many colourful objects cause the picture to look closed and all-encompassing at the same time. Viewers have the impression of passing by, of flowing, as well as of going into the depths. Maybe it is the world, the continents connected by blue waters, or maybe a river or sea journey? ‘It’s a psychological painting of the unconscious,’ Zsuzsa Millei reflected.

A square picture with a strong blue background and slightly light green on its left and right borders. In the middle appears a large head and neck silhouette. The face is covered by a gradient of white, light, pink, and light blue color. At the bottom of the painting are a few red brushstrokes.

Fig. 3.6 Hanna Trampert, Memory 2, 2020, 100×100 cm.

This piece represents the brain’s building of memory pathways or the subconscious. It also describes the human experience in the twenty-first century of changing time.

On a green meadow with yellow and red flowers stands a girl of approximately 12 years of age. She is wearing a green dress with a light collar and buttons on the front. The girl’s left hand is stretched out and holds a red balloon on a string. The girl has shoulder-long hair and looks at the balloon. The right hand disappears in the tall grass. Above the meadow is a blue sky with white clouds. Below the balloon, there is a slight suggestion of a large face watching the girl from the sky above.

Fig. 3.7 Hanna Trampert, The Girl with the Balloon 1, 2020, 70×90 cm.

The act of giving childhood an importance, a justification, has a very special and significant impact on adult life. This is what happened for me in the Reconnect/Recollect workshop: something changed and continues to change so that I feel as light as a balloon.

Three large circles, each light and dark blue in color, are situated on three red struts. Inside each circle is a purple sunset by the sea. Situated behind the circles, close to the painting’s middle, stands a girl of approximately seven years of age dressed in a purple top, dark blue pants, and purple shoes. The girl appears to wave at the viewer with her right hand, which is angled at the elbow. Her left arm is kept close to the body. Brown watercolor and sand colored cross-stripes make up the bottom of the painting.

Fig. 3.8 Hanna Trampert, The Girl by the Sea, 2020, 70×90 cm.

Here, it is as if the girl is going back to the Baltic Sea, to where her migration from Poland began. The water beckons benevolently towards us or towards itself. In the eddies, different times of day on the sea are visible.

Light and dark blue stripes appear in the background. Those could be representing the sea or the sky. In the lower part of the picture, a girl is lying on her back on an emerald green blanket. She is about 18 years of age and is wearing a zippered lilac sweater, blue pants, and pink shoes. Her right leg is folded over the left, her hands crossed below her head. A red balloon is floating above, tethered to the edge of the blanket. The girl seems relaxed, and is looking in the direction of the balloon, on which a pencil-drawn face of a girl is visible.

Fig. 3.9 Hanna Trampert, The Girl with the Balloon 2, 2020, 70×90 cm.

In The Girl with the Balloon 2 (Figure 3.9), the girl is older. She is relaxed and her gaze follows the balloon, which floats far in the sky over the Baltic Sea.

A painting with a light blue gray background. Standing on sandy ground (on the right side) are three figures with realistically painted faces. The figure in the middle holds in its right hand a rope, which leads to the left of the picture and ends at a green stripe. Visible to the left and standing in the background is the second figure, tethered via a thin thread to the third figure situated in the front.

Fig. 3.10 Hanna Trampert, Friends 3, 2021, 50×60 cm.

Here, people are depicted in nature. They are connected by the thread, helping each other. This work, as all of my work, was created intuitively. It represents my good experiences with the Reconnect/Recollect project. Helpfulness and openness pass from one person to another like a rope.

A light grey sky is painted in large brush strokes in the background. Visible in the foreground is the back of a woman’s head as well as her upper back. The woman’s hair is tied behind her ears; she wears a necklace and looks toward the East. The outline of a second person, a woman, appears painted with orange paint strokes around the girl. The woman looks toward the West. The girl appears to be viewing a yellow topped mountain range, in front of which a light blue area appears that flows over her left shoulder.

Fig. 3.11 Hanna Trampert, Self-Portrait, 2021, 50×60 cm.

This, the last picture inspired by the Reconnect/Recollect project, was created shortly before the conference in Berlin in which I participated. The woman (me) faces the same direction as the viewer, and a connection is created: me and the viewer are now a ‘we’. As my view wanders from the west to east, it ponders history and the neighboring countries; it crosses borders. The symbolic blue surface dissolves, becomes water. Moments and memories of childhood fly over my shoulder. Temporal and spatial separations cease to exist.