Reimagining space, history and memory in East Germany through sonic fragments of Chilean exile

Abstract

This article addresses ongoing discussions regarding the material and cultural legacies of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). It draws on texts produced by two individuals that were members of the Chilean artistic community that lived in exile in the GDR during the Chilean military dictatorship (1973–90). I argue that descriptions of musical activity and sonic memories within these texts offer a powerful counterpoint to some of the more prevailing assumptions that tend to position East German cultural history either as relic of material nostalgia or simply subsumed under capitalism after the period of German reunification. By positioning the ephemeral and unruly sonic traces of the Chilean exile community against mainstream narratives of GDR history, this article offers the possibility of examining and animating spaces subject to invisibility and disappearance in contemporary German memory.