Staging Trauma

This essay explores the key philosophic issues embedded in modern knowledge that are implicit in the staging of Holocaust memorials, specifically the NOVA Exhibition, first organized for public viewing in December 2023, and later traveling to New York City and Los Angeles. The basic premise critiques the realist principle at work in creating vicarious empathy as the foremost experience for the attendee, as a strategy for remembering catastrophe. As a historical treatment of Holocaust memory and, arguably, its origin point, Yad Vashem—the World Holocaust Remembrance Center lays the basis for subsequent memory projects, such as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in Washington DC. After analyzing the NOVA Exhibition’s staging design, the essay picks up the key epistemological questions raised, in other words, examining the terms upon which an object of knowing may exceed the ability to grasp or comprehend. Exhibitions such as NOVA attempt to close the experiential gap between historical event and post-event viewing, through principles of information retrieval and vicarious empathy.