ONE of the world's leading artists is to bring the history of the Holocaust alive against one of the world's most beautiful backdrops.

Miroslaw Balka, a contemporary artist from Poland, is set to install a tantalising exhibition in Windermere in September. The exhibition, titled ‘yromem,’ has been commissioned by the Lake District Holocaust Project and will open to the public on Saturday September 9.

Project director Trevor Avery said: “This is a moment of great significance for the project in Windermere.

“Our connection to the child Holocaust survivors who came in 1945 is both commemorative and educational at its heart. There is also a sense of time passing and Miroslaw is just the best there is at dealing with issues of history, memory, fracture and all carried out with captivating visual and conceptual poetry.”

The exhibition is the final stage of a two-year programme called “Holocaust and Memory Reframed” which has been curated by LDHP with the support of Arts Council England. ‘yromem’ is the last of four exhibitions exploring aspects of post-Holocaust arts and culture and relate to “the representation of the unrepresentational”.

Mr Balka uses drawings and constructions that give powerful reflections on ritual, hidden memories and the history of Nazi occupation in Poland. Balka is a resident of Warsaw and his work deals with both personal and collective memories, especially in relation to his Catholic upbringing and the collective experience of Poland’s fractured history.

Sir Nicholas Serota, chairman of Arts Council England, said: “Miroslaw Balka is one of the world’s leading contemporary artists and his work is both beautiful and unsettling. There could be no finer or more appropriate context for one of his exhibitions than the Lake District, the spiritual home of English Romanticism, which also has connections to one of the defining moments of human history, the Holocaust.

“Miroslaw’s work is informed by many concerns, but especially the impact of the Holocaust and the identity of communities. Miroslaw grew up in Otwock, near Warsaw, and his work remains rooted in the place of his birth.”

Additional contributions from Kazia Redzisz, senior curator at the Tate, and Marek Gozdziewski from the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw, make the exhibition a remarkable moment for the Lake District and its connections to the Holocaust. It will run until November 4.