Sonya Umanskaya

Concrete is the second most used material in the world and the most destructive one. Serving not only for the construction of contemporary buildings but also as an essential material in military architecture, it becomes a reminder of wartime. But what happens to the memory of war when it’s over, when it slowly fades away, and the walls and bunkers start to crumble?

Through the exploration of the Atlantic Wall—a system of coastal defenses and fortifications built by Nazi Germany during the Second World War along the coast of continental Europe and Scandinavia—and concrete as a building material used for it, Sonya aims to examine the impact of military structures on civilian landscapes amid ongoing global conflicts.

As a Russian citizen affected by the war between Russia and Ukraine, she connects her experience with the environment of The Hague, the political capital of the Netherlands. She explores how the city deals with its own difficult wartime past, questioning how this heritage influences contemporary politics and local memory.