Paper short abstract:

The paper aims to investigate how the design of multisensory experience within performative walks provides an alternative to retell and reinterpret the city's past. It is based on ethnographic research on guided walks during the Jewish Culture Festival in Kraków.

Paper long abstract:

The paper is particularly interested in the new form of guided walking tours dedicated to the history of Kraków Jews. Guided walks are a popular activity of both tourists and Kraków residents. Performative walks have been organized since 2018 as part of the largest Jewish Cultural Festival in Europe. The innovative approach and participatory role of the attendees allow one to experience the city's past rather than gain knowledge about it.

Drawing upon ethnographic research, the following questions will be raised: How do artists design a multisensory experience to evoke shared emotions? And in what ways do these emotions reflect the younger generation's conceptualizations of the city's past and heritage? By mixing fact and fiction, the authors of the walks have developed a new mode of retelling the past. During the events, space mediated through the senses expresses the loss and nostalgia for the multi-ethnic society before World War II. Furthermore, these notions are shared with the participants of the guided walk.

From an anthropological perspective, the investigation of the guided walk goes beyond knowledge transfer to embrace an embodied experience in space. Using a theoretical framework of Memory Studies and Critical Heritage Studies, the guided walk is captured as a phenomenon that co-creates the cityscape of imagined pasts of Kraków Jewish communities.