Post Palace
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| 8 EUR / reduced 4 EUR |
| Duration: 120 min |
| Ground Floor, Hall 3 |
| Part of: SITE SPECIFICS |
The Palace of the Republic, once a center of state representation and cultural life in the GDR, became a subject of controversy and a symbol of the conflicts surrounding German reunification in the 1990s. Its demolition between 2006 and 2008 continues to spark controversial debates about memory and the question of whose voices are heard – not least within the Humboldt Forum.
What does the Palace mean to a generation that knows it largely through stories? And how has the legacy of the GDR shaped people born in the 1990s?
The publication of Postwendekinder. Für eine solidarische und gleichberechtigte deutsch-deutsche Zukunft (Children of the Post-Reunification Generation: Towards a Solidary and Equal Future for East and West Germans) invites us to explore these questions together.
Together with the editor Angelique Pershon and the author Martin Ebendorff-Heidepriem we will ask why it remains important, thirty-six years after reunification, to talk about the identities of young people in Germany today. We will also be talking to Dominique Falentin, one of the curators of the exhibition Blown Away at the Humboldt Forum in 2024/25, and the cultural studies expert Julius L. Jung about their perspectives on the Palace of the Republic. Moderated by Dr. Judith Prokasky, Stiftung Humboldt Forum.
We invite the audience to reflect, contribute, and join the discussion.
Participants
Dominique Falentin is an art historian. In 2019, she wrote her master’s thesis on the Palace of the Republic in the context of memory culture, analyzing the topic through the lens of various exhibitions. From 2022 to 2025, she was part of the exhibition and program team for Blown Away: The Palace of the Republic at the Stiftung Humboldt Forum im Berliner Schloss. This past spring, an essay by her was published in the book Postwendekinder. Für eine solidarische und gleichberechtigte deutsche-deutsche Zukunft. Since May 2026, she has been working in reading promotion and public relations at the Kinder- und Jugendbibliothek Spandau (Children’s and Youth Library Spandau).
Julius L. Jung studied American Studies and German Literature (BA in October 2025) and engages with the reappraisal of East and West German history. Originally from Upper Franconia – a West German region located along the former inner-German border – he has lived in Berlin for the past ten years. In 2024, together with fellow students, he developed the intervention Palastkonsulat für Erinnerungen und Objekte (“Palace Consulate for Memories and Objects”) at the Stiftung Humboldt Forum im Berliner Schloss as part of a seminar led by Daniel Tyradellis at the Helmholtz Centre for Cultural Techniques. The project explored the significance of the Palace of the Republic for German-German history. He currently works as a Junior Project Manager at BAND (Business Angels Deutschland e.V.).
Angelique Pershon is a psychologist (M.Sc.) and an IT and management consultant specializing in the public sector. She studied in Lübeck, San Marcos (USA), and Leuven (Belgium), and gained practical experience in these locations as well as in Bucharest (Romania), Frankfurt am Main, and Bad Kissingen. Her academic research focuses on social and organizational processes and their emotional and neuropsychological foundations. Most recently, she worked on academic research projects examining shared leadership, team performance, and the expression of emotions in natural language using Natural Language Processing (NLP). In addition to her consulting work, she is a Fellow of Zukunft-Fabrik.2050, where she is engaged in shaping discussions on future-oriented issues. She is committed to educational equity, the culture of remembrance, and psychoeducation, and is an active member of the alumni network of the Stiftung der Deutschen Wirtschaft (sdw).
Martin Ebendorff-Heidepriem was born in 1993 in Montana, Bulgaria, and grew up in Jena, Germany. He studied Sociology at Goethe University Frankfurt and Code & Context at TH Köln (Cologne University of Applied Sciences). He currently lives in Wuppertal, where he works as a freelance software developer and in the hospitality sector. Alongside his professional activities, he is involved in various civil society initiatives focusing on democracy, migration, and the culture of remembrance. The fragmented nature of his family history, spanning East and West Germany as well as Western Europe, Bulgaria, and Iraq, has been a constant source of inspiration for exploring questions of cultural and national identity, as well as the bridges and divisions between them. Since 2025, he has been working on a novel that addresses these themes through a biographically informed perspective.