About the project

The Project "Postcards and Postcarding Culture in Germany and Israel 1960-2000: Adressing an Ambivalent Habitual Object in Times of Historical Upheavals." explores postcards in Germany and Israel from 1960 to 2000, juxtaposing the post imagery with the significant socio-political events of this period.

Germany and Israel were undergoing historical upheavals with unstable national boundaries and a profound transformation in the way culture was perceived. Most postcards of this period continued to present romantic ideals of the "folk", reproducing stereotypical, sexist, and racist imagery, when these were under fierce social critique. This tension between change and stability underlies our project, which traces postcards demonstration spaces and cultures. In contrast, postcards were subverting this assumed stability and showing marginal ideals such as feminism or environmentalism.

We will work with archived postcard collections, interview individuals who took part in postcarding culture, and work with postcards exchanges between Germany and Israel as an additional way of understanding how postcards continue to work.