Barbara Yelin: Drawing Lives

Winner of the Villa Massimo Rome Prize and, since September, a fellow at the German Academy Villa Massimo in Rome, Barbara Yelin is one of the most interesting voices in contemporary German graphic novels. Classic storytelling and visual experimentation intertwine in her work, which moves between the boundaries of comics, illustration and visual arts.

The free exhibition at the KunstRaum of the Goethe-Institut in Rome presents over 80 plates taken from her main works, which combine drawing, words and sequentiality to investigate and reconstruct the different fragments of a personal story that becomes collective. Yelin tackles the theme of memory through the lives of several people and characters: Therese Giehse, a revolutionary figure in German theatre and Brecht’s historic interpreter; Emmie Arbel, survivor of the Ravensbrück and Bergen-Belsen extermination camps; Irmina, a fictional character inspired by a true story, who recounts the difficult choice in the days of National Socialism between feelings, personal freedom and the drive for social recognition; and Kidane, an Eritrean immigrant in present-day Bern.

Reconstructing the “lives of others” is a hallmark of Yelin’s poetics, which takes shape through extensive research and investigation, getting as close as possible to the sources, whether they be academic and archival (to reconstruct events and contexts, with attention to every detail), or living, as evidenced by the lengthy conversations with Emmie Arbel.