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This is a Symposium proposal with 3 contributors. Symposium abstract and individual abstracts are attached as a PDF below!

This symposium addresses the testimony of Yazidi survivors of the 2014 genocide by ISIS in North Iraq’s Shingal province. It brings together three hitherto unconnected fields: human rights, trauma therapy, and multilingualism research. What connects them is their implementation of technology and/or therapy, multiple forms of arts, and memory work. The difference lies in how these tools are implemented:

1. Thikran Mato delves into the creation of immersive virtual realities, here: the virtual reconstruction of destroyed Yazidi villages. Combined with artistic installations and memory work, the approach continues to enable powerful public encounters.
2. Ilka Konopatsch addresses the testimony from a more individual angle, asking what it takes for a survivor to create safe, self-directed public encounters. She combines dance movement therapy, a photo arts exhibition, and biographical interviews, ultimately intended to facilitate self-expression and healing.
3. Katharina Brizic concludes with a complementary perspective, asking how the wider German society can be involved into enabling dialogue, empathy and trauma-sensitivity. Building on survivors’ voices as raised in therapy sessions and virtual realities, she describes an interdisciplinary endeavour of bringing in touch Yazidi survivors and German school classes. The multilingualism and polyphony of the many, often conflicting remembrance cultures in Germany are envisioned to be integrated into encounters of speaking/listening to each other – which will also include artistic interventions – for the larger aim to ultimately proceed to a trauma-sensitive societal climate.