The four winners of the 2022-23 LIDL Year Abroad Project Prize Winners have kindly shared with us the projects they will be working on during their current Year Abroad.
Abigail Dykes (New College) : Bilingual vlog depicting the various cultural landmarks of Berlin
"The focus of my Lidl year abroad project is the creation of a bilingual vlog depicting the various cultural landmarks of Berlin. During my year abroad, I will be working with the British Council in a secondary school for 12 hours a week, which will allow me plenty of explore Germany, with a particular focus on Berlin, which has an endless list of attractions I want to visit: the Brandenburg Gate, Museum Island, the Reichstag, the Berlin Wall Memorial, Checkpoint Charlie, to name but a few. These are landmarks I have encountered in my studies time and time again, but I have never been fortunate enough to be able to see them in the flesh. It is therefore important to me to be able to document my experience in Berlin extensively, as something to be able to look back on years down the line. Furthermore, I would also like this project to aid me in my development of spoken German, so I would like to conduct these vlogs in mainly German but provide English subtitles. I hope this will help to immerse me in the language, even when not speaking to people directly. I would then like these vlogs to be uploaded to YouTube, a place where they can be accessible to all and easily located. I have previous experience in video editing and content creation, so I have confidence I will be able to make these blogs dynamic and interesting to watch."
Haley Flower (Somerville College) : Landscape Painting in Heidelberg
"The idea for my LIDL year abroad project stems jointly from my love for art and for the natural world; I plan to combine the two by enrolling in landscape painting courses in Heidelberg, where I will be studying for most of the year. Nestled in the Odenwald hills along the winding river Neckar, and surrounded by landscape that inspired painters such as Turner and Fohr, as well as the poets and authors of Heidelberg Romanticism, living in Heidelberg provides the perfect opportunity for this. By the end of the year, I hope to have produced an exhibition of paintings inspired by this scenery and the proximity of the city to the natural world; alongside the artwork, I will keep sketchbooks and produce an exhibition guide to better articulate my creative process. Beyond Oxford, I hope to continue my love of art and become involved with the arts in Germany; landscape painting has interested me since A-Level, and I plan to further develop this by applying to German art schools after graduating."


Alexander Kahn (Wadham College) : Voices of the living and the lost: translations from Leipzig's vanished Jewish world
"I plan to translate a selection of texts from Leipzig’s historical Jewish community (such as Clara Caroline Schachne, Eduard Einschlag and Lazar Gulkowitsch), and compile a small collection of poems, stories, writings, illustrated by myself with depictions of Leipzig’s Jewish life today. The literary side is recording the historical Jewish community, who were erased by the National Socialists, while the illustrative side depicts Leipzig’s Jewish community today."
Clara Wittmann (St. Hilda's College)
"With the LIDL creative project prize money I plan on producing and printing a dual language poetry book complete with illustrations. The finished product will be an amalgamation of my own work and the poetry / art of people that I meet in Leipzig University where I will be studying for the Wintersemester. I hope to explore Germany’s rich poetic tradition through this project which will be supplemented by the Germanistik course I am taking. I am particularly excited about going through the process of producing the book and hope to find local craftspeople to learn how this process works."