A space for healing
Here’s the thing about tragedies de jour: When the news eventually recedes from public consciousness like water, only survivors are left to grapple with the fallout.
Nearly a year post-flood, long after the last television crew and relief worker had packed up and gone, the UD team encountered what Brueckner calls an “intensely bizarre landscape:” homes stripped down to their bones, businesses attempting to reopen amidst the rubble, residents enduring a period of interminable waiting—waiting for insurance payments to come through, for chaos to settle, for a sign from the outside world that their suffering had not been forgotten.
The latter, at least, the UD students could provide.
In a series of pop-up clinics, the Blue Hens invited residents of Ahrweiler and surrounding villages to bring their damaged personal items for expert advice on how to salvage them. With Brueckner serving as translator, the locals poured in, carrying muddied sentimental objects ranging from family albums to paintings of exotic fruit. One woman choked up when the students helped her uncover a photo of her late father. Another, a widow, asked for help with her ceramic plates, a cherished gift from her wedding day. And one gentleman gingerly carried a 17th-century book that had been handed down to him by a beloved relative, and which he hoped to gift his own grandchildren someday.
The items appeared fairly ordinary—nothing particularly exhibition-worthy or valuable. And yet, as cultural representations of what this community has endured, they became a launchpad for fulfilling a deeper human need: sharing—and processing—grief.
“People used their objects to say: ‘Look at this; look at what my family treasures have survived; look at what I have survived’,” says Maddie Cooper, AS15, TK21, preventive conservator at Philadelphia’s Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts. “It was nice to offer guidance on preserving these heirlooms, but even more important was listening and acknowledging that trauma. We were able to tell them: ‘These things that tell your story, that you care so much about? We care about them, too.’ In this way, cultural preservation after a disaster helps build resilience.”
But it wasn’t just the townspeople who benefited from this work. Humbled by the trust placed in them over the course of the week, the Blue Hens also gleaned new perspectives on their craft.
“As stewards of material things, we have to remember the human stories,” Kelley says. “We can’t be some secretive group stowed away in labs or basements. You might spend an entire career studying priceless artifacts in a museum. But the things in a home—the objects that tell the story of who we are—are just as important.
“I do think these clinics were a bit of therapy for the people who came,” she adds. “And maybe for us, too.”
Looking forward
At this moment in Ahrweiler, there sits a Madonna statue smeared with mud that no one wanted to remove. That religious artifact will remain purposefully dirty, serving as a reminder of what happened to this town, its resilience and resolve to ensure such tragedy does not happen again.
And therein lies one of the great challenges of disaster recovery: When a mud stain or patch of rust becomes part of an object’s story, should it remain? The question can, at times, pit art conservationists (who seek to preserve the structural integrity of an artifact) against material cultural professionals (who assign new meaning to objects based on their breaks and blemishes).
Emily Bach, AS22M, was a material culture student at the time of the trip, which she calls “a surreal experience, an honor and a privilege.” Part of what drew her to the mission—and what she’ll take with her in her new career as associate registrar for the Maryland Center for History and Culture—is an unlikely collaboration between these seemingly diametric ideologies.
From her time in Germany, Bach recalls an early 20th-century cloth utensil holder whose utensils went missing… but not before the floodwaters permanently etched a rusty outline of their shape. The treatment plan for the object represented a compromise of sorts between culture and conservation: a little preliminary cleaning, but nothing to remove that shadowy reminder of the disaster.
Today, all of Ahrweiler grapples with these same questions: How much of the past can you afford to hold onto? How much can you afford to let go? Has all the damage been in vain, or might it be imbued with meaning? Can you mend what’s broken? Should you?
UD’s effort to help provide answers, at least in some small way, reinvigorated support for Ahrweiler from outside agencies, including Germany’s Cologne University of Applied Sciences, who will send experts from its own conservation program to pick up where the Blue Hen team left off. The trip also inspired ongoing discussions on UD’s campus about ways to facilitate future disaster recovery trips, given the increasing need for this type of work in the face of a changing climate.
But even after the world inevitably moves on to the next headline-grabbing event, residents of Ahrweiler past and present will continue rebuilding and remembering, Brueckner among them. During his recent visit, he once again climbed the rugged hillside where he did so much exploring as a child, and he gazed upon the fields and church spires of the place that raised him. He is under no illusions: This town will never be the same. But, breathing deep, he could still detect Ahrweiler’s unmistakable scent in the air: tangy, earthy, fragrant.
The smell of home.