On March 8th, the Office of Culture in Liechtenstein opened an art exhibition in the National Archives building titled “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream,” which explores themes of Liechtenstein emigration to America. Liechtenstein artist Anna Hilti crafted the pieces on display by using emigration records from the Naitonal Archives and interpreting them visually.
Hilti has long worked with the topic of emigration to the United States in her art, which combines photography, sketches, paintings, and sculptures into visually imposing displays of her subject matter. Her works have been displayed at the Venice Biennale and at the Cité international des Arts in Paris, an incubator for young artists. Her work even took her to Pennsylvania where she set out to find the burial grounds of a Liechtensteiner who had perished in 1881, which was reported on in the September 2016 Embassy e-Newsletter.
At the exhibition’s opening gala, Liechtenstein’s Foreign Minister Aurelia Frick introduced guests to the material, as well as the history of the topic at hand. In addition to this event, Schichtwechsel, an organization that promotes the arts, hosted an evening with a series of five minute lectures on the topic of emigration on March 17th, held against the backdrop of the “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream” exhibition. It was a further installment of its “eat more art” initiative, which strives to foster engagement with the arts in Liechtenstein.
Additionally, a presentation titled “Auswandererbriefe” (Emigrants’ Letters) was held on April 12th. Organized by the Historical Society of Liechtenstein, this event featured a lecture by historian Lukas Ospelt, who specializes in topics of resettlement and migration as they relate to Liechtenstein, and has worked in archives and research in Liechtenstein and Austria for nearly two decades.