Why Remember? Testimonies of Light, Sarajevo, 7-9 July 2025

PhD and Practitioner Day: Monday 7 July 2025, at the Historical Museum of Bosnia and Hezegovina

Main Conference Days: Tuesday 8 July - Wednesday 9 July 2025, at the Hotel Europe, Vladislava Skarića 5, Sarajevo 71000

Registration is free.  Please register for either or both days by selecting from the ticket types available.

The 2025 Why Remember? Testimonies of Light conference will mark 30 years since the Srebrenica genocide, and the events of the Bosnian War which resulted in the signing of the Dayton Accords in late 1995. This year’s conference will reflect on how these defining events continue to shape memory, reconciliation, and peacebuilding in Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as other post-conflict societies throughout the world.  As we commemorate this significant anniversary, we will also pay tribute to Professor Paul Lowe, the conference series’ founder and internationally acclaimed conflict photographer, who passed away in October 2024.

The 2025 conference will critically examine how memory, trauma, and reconciliation intersect in the context of genocide and post-conflict peace processes.  It will explore how the legacy of Srebrenica continues to resonate in collective memory and how post-Dayton Bosnia informs contemporary debates more broadly on peace and nation-building.  

The conference brings together scholars, practitioners, and artists to reflect on the enduring impacts of these historical events while fostering dialogue on how to build inclusive, pluralist narratives that support peace and coexistence.  As Paul Lowe said, ‘Art remembers and pays testimony to the past. [It] pays attention to things that would otherwise go unnoticed and unseen.’

This year’s gathering is particularly mindful of the importance of accessibility and inclusivity, and therefore, and in honour of our friend and colleague Paul, there will be no conference fee this year.  

Session details to be advertised shortly.  

Registrations are essential and numbers are limited.  

Please note that this year’s conference will not be live-streamed. 

The 2025 Why Remember? Testimonies of Light Conference is organised by Curtin University in Perth, Australia, London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, and War Studies at Kings College London, in partnership with The Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with funding from London College of Communication and the Art of Peace Australian Research Council project. 

Art of Peace: New perspectives in visual art on peacekeeping from the 1990s is an Australian Research Council Linkage Project funded by the Australian Government through a grant of $435,984 (2023-2025) (LP210300068), led by Curtin University, in partnership with the Art Gallery of Western Australia and National Trust (NSW), in collaboration with University of New South Wales, University of Melbourne, University of the Arts London and California State University.