15. Connecting Across Divides

Abstract

In this chapter, we describe the process of―and reflect on our experiences with―creating the collaborative, international motion comic ‘Ghost Train―Memories of Ghost Trains and Ghost Stations in Former East and West Berlin’, which is based on memories that we shared in a Reconnect/Recollect project workshop. During this workshop, Sarah Fichtner shared her West Berliner childhood memory of accidentally riding an underground train through ‘ghost stations’ of East Berlin. In turn, Anja Werner recalled a scene from her East German childhood of when she actually heard such ‘ghost trains’ rumbling underneath an apartment in East Berlin. From the experience with our motion comic, we gather that motion comics, because they are pieces of art, can add additional layers to history work. They do so by working with and addressing emotions, thus becoming (e-)motion comics as they connect people through memories across divides, time, and space.