Giving Voice and Face to the Persecuted
The work on the future homepage of the project "Asking the Pope for Help" is already well underway. This was evident when a team from the Hamburg-based agency "Fork Unstable Media" presented their designs during a workshop at the Seminar for Medieval and Modern Church History last Tuesday. The participants of the event were enthusiastic. Alongside the scientific staff and assistants, especially the volunteer Citizen Scientists of the project were well represented. They actively contributed to the discussions with a variety of ideas and suggestions for improvement.
Through the creative use of colours, shapes, and tones, the Fork team manages to portray information about persecuted individuals and events at the Roman Curia in a very personal way. This aligns with the project's goal: to give a face and a voice to those persecuted by the NS regime who sought help from the Vatican. The targeted use of artificial intelligence, for example for translations, will also make it possible to make the site accessible to a large number of people internationally.
The workshop took place as part of a week-long retreat for the scientific staff of the project "Asking the Pope for Help" and the associated sub-project "Belonging then and now." The focus was not only on designing the future homepage but also on continuously refining the editorial guidelines and coordinating the next steps of the work.