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

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Hotel Europe
Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
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Event description

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. 

CONFERENCE PROGRAMME: 7-9 JULY 2025

PhD Practitioner Day: Monday 7 July 2025

 

Time

Room 1

9.00am

Registration: Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 71000, Zmaja od Bosne 5, Sarajevo 71000, Bosnia & Herzegovina

9.30am

Introduction and Opening by Vera Zurbrügg

 

9.40am

Keynote Lecture

 

Bisan Abu Eisheh Breathing Archives

 

Keynote followed by questions and discussion

 

11.00am   Break

11.15am

 

 

 

 

 

 

Session 1 - Remembering in Institutions

 

●       Dalila Mirović

Beyond Archives: How the History Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina Uses Digital Platforms to Preserve and Mediate Memory

 

●       Patrick Dowson

Libraries as "Spaces of Collected Memory" in the Western Balkans

 

●       Marilia Fotopoulou

In the Midst of it all: Collecting and Curating Children’s Perspectives in Times of Migration by the War Childhood Museum in Sarajevo

 

Presentations followed by questions and discussion

 

12pm

Session 2 - Generating the Past

 

Alexey Yurenev in conversation with Vera Zurbrügg about his book Seeing Against Seeing

Followed by questions and discussion

 

 

12.30pm

 

Lunch (provided)

 

1.15pm

Session 3 - Reclaiming the Narrative

 

●       Andreea Elle Vas (Paciu)

Remembering the everyday of childhoods under oppression and siege: art and oral history counter-narratives reclaiming the past

 

●       Kyaice Hendricks

Melancholia and post-conflict memory: The relationship between time, grief and family photos in Tarik Samarah’s Srebrenica and Jasmila Zbanic’s Quo Vadis, Aida?

 

●       Arta Uka

Navigating the Ongoing Marginalisation of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence Survivors: Exploring the Nexus of Conflict, Art and Memory

 

Presentations followed by questions and discussion

 

2pm

Session 4 - Documenting the Future

 

Anders Birger in conversation with David Birkin about his work For Clara

 

Followed by questions and discussion

 

2.30pm

Break

2.45pm

Session 5 - Reconfiguring, Silencing, Justifying

 

●       Hella Wiedmer-Newman

New Memory in Post-Conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina: Re-incribing the Protectorate, Re-Centering the Transnational (2020-2025)

 

●       Maxwin Rayen

Banned from the Beach: Memory, Repression, and the Silencing of Mullivaikkal Remembrance in Tamil Nadu

 

●       Jessica Bombasaro-Brady

Déjà vu in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Comparing police officers’ roles as ethno-political agents in 1992 and 2025

 

●       Samuel Raus

Antemurale Europae: Justifications for the War in Gaza Bring Eerie Echoes of Serb Nationalism in the 1990s

 

Presentations followed by questions and discussion

 

3.40

Navigating the Research Process (from Material to Mental Health)

 

Jennifer Good in conversation with Vera Zurbrügg

 

Followed by questions and discussion

 

5pm

End of PhD + Practitioner Day

 

Please wait at the Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina for the Why Remember? Testimonies of Light Conference Opening Event and Drinks, starting at 5:30pm. 


 

Monday 7 July 2025: Opening Event

 

5.30pm

Why Remember? Testimonies of Light Conference Opening Event and Drinks

 

Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 71000, Zmaja od Bosne 5, Sarajevo 71000, Bosnia & Herzegovina

 

Speeches by:

 

●       Elma Hašimbegović

●       Brigitte Lardinois

●       Max Houghton

 

●       Amra Abadžić Lowe

 

Jan-Joseph Stok presents #PeaceforPaul images

 

7.30pm

End

 


 

Day 1: Tuesday 8 July 2025

 

Time

Room 1

9:00am

Registration: Hotel Europe, Vladislava Skarića 5, Sarajevo 71000

 

Coffee and Tea

9:30am

Introduction and Opening

 

Max Houghton, Kit Messham-Muir, Henry Redwood

 

9:40am

Session 1: Artist Roundtable

Chair: Henry Redwood

 

●       Vladimir Miladinović

●       Kumjana Novakova

 

10:40am

Session 2: Panel: Art and Reconciliation

 

Chair: Rachel Kerr

 

●       Tiffany Fairey

●       Elma Hašimbegović

●       James Gow

●       Melina MIchalski

●       Vladimir Milandinović

●       Denisa Kostovicova

 

Presentations followed by questions and discussion

 

12:00pm   Lunch (Lunch not provided but there are many restaurants local to the venue, we will lead groups to different ones)

 

1:00pm

 

 

 

Session 3: Keynote: Srebrenica keynote - Hasan Nuhanović

 

Chair: Elma Hašimbegović

 

Presentations followed by questions and discussion

1.45pm

Session 4: Film Screening: Facing Srebrenica – A Living Archive - Erna Rijsdijk and Tim Klaase

 

This short film (25 min) introduces the participatory photo-archive project Facing Srebrenica and explores how images taken by Dutchbat soldiers in 1994–1995 are being revisited by survivors and veterans today. It documents an unfolding process of dialogue, co-creation, and shared reflection on the ongoing presence of the past.

 

Questions and discussion in the following session

2:15pm

Session 5: Panel: Image, Memory, Conflict

 

Chair: Max Houghton

 

●       David Birkin

How to Do Things with Images: Visuality, Performativity, Resistance

●       Edmund Clark

The Ordered Universe of War: Knowledge, Meaning and Seeing - American Military Power in the 21st century

●       Azra Haracic

Memory, Witness, and the Work of Peace

●       Alexey Yurenev

On Present and Absent Photographs as the Silent Heroes of Synthetic and Social Memories

●       Tim Klaase and Erna Rijsdijk (Q&A)

 

Presentations followed by questions and discussion

 

3:45pm

Break

 

Room 1

Room 2

4:00pm

Session 6A: Panel: Activism and Counter Narratives

 

Chair: David Birkin

 

●       Esma Kucukalic Ibrahimović

"Solo el pueblo salva al pueblo" - VALENCIA: from Bosnian Refugees (1992) to DANA (2024). When institutional trust is broken, counter-narratives of community action become visible.

●       Denisa Kostovicova

Lanabi La Lova

Digital Divides or Global Bridges? Mapping Online Discourse on #Srebrenica

●       Andreea Elle Vas (Paciu)

Remembering the everyday of childhoods under oppression and siege: art and oral history counter-narratives reclaiming the past

 

Presentations followed by questions and discussion

Session 6B: Panel: Legacies of Conflict

 

Chair: Steve Cross

 

●       Jane Drapkin

The complexities of Peace: Tuzla and the containment of ethno-nationalism

●       Adisa Avdić Küsmüs

Symbolic Landscape and Reconciliation in Brčko District: Confronting the Legacy of Conflict

●       Jessica Bombasaro-Brady

Déjà vu in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Comparing police officers’ roles as ethno-political agents in 1992 and 2025

●       Arta Uka

Screaming into the Abyss: Children’s Often Neglected Lived Wartime Experiences

 

 

Presentations followed by questions and discussion

5:30pm

End of Day 1 at Hotel Europe

 

8:00pm

 

Kumjana Novakova, Silence of Reason (2023, 63 mins) film screening at Kinoteka Bosnia and Herzegovina

Kinoteka Bosne i Hercegovine, Alipašina 19, Sarajevo 71200, Bosnia & Herzegovina

 


 

Day 2:  Wednesday 9 July 2025

 

9:00am

Session 7A: Panel: Museums and Commemorative Practice

 

Chair: Clare Lawlor

 

●       Martina Ricci

Commemorating Srebrenica: Cross-Cultural Representations and the Globalization of Trauma.

●       Azra Imamović.

Memorials, Social Media and Struggles: Cases of Banja Luka, Brčko, Mostar and Sarajevo

●       Ajnura A. Akbaš
War Childhood Museum: Ethical Documentation Methodologies for War-Affected Childhoods

 

Presentations followed by questions and discussion

 

10:30am

Break

 

Room 1

Room 2

10:45am

Session 8A: Panel: Genocide and Art Practice

 

Chair: Henry Redwood

 

●       Emina Zoletić

Linda Paganelli

Snežana Stanković

"My son, you have a dream

Follow it with the night given to you!"

Artistic Narration Amidst and in Aftermath of Destruction. Bosnia and Herzegovina. Kosovo. Palestine.

●       Nina Rojc

The Limits of Reconciliation: Who defines what reconciliation means, and whose voices are legitimized in the process?

●       Gabriella Seith

              Artistic Memorialization in Sarajevo and in Gaza

 

Presentations followed by questions and discussion

 

 

Session 8B: Panel discussion: Innovative Practices of Memorialization and Living Together After Conflict

 

Moderated: Post-Conflict Research Center (PCRC)

 

Chair: Brigitte Lardinois

 

●       Velma Šarić and Tatjana Milovanonvić

●       Tiffany Fairey

Peace is possible: The role of strategic visual narratives in peacebuilding.

●       Pratap Rughani

Impossible Conversations?

●       James Smith

 

 

Presentations followed by questions and discussion

 

 

12:15pm

 

Lunch: Lunch not provided, but there are many restaurants local to the venue, and we will lead groups to different ones

 

1:15pm

Session 9: Keynote: Adela Jušić in conversation with Kit Messham-Muir

 

Presentation followed by questions and discussion

 

2:00pm

Session 10A: Panel: Reimagining Trauma and Community: creative and embodied practices in Ukraine

 

Chair: Henry Redwood and Kit Messham-Muir

 

●       Halyna Hleba and Veronika Skliarova

Art as Collective Griefwork: Participatory Practices and Post-Traumatic Growth in Times of War

●       Oksana Potapova

Embodied narratives of war-time feminist activism in Ukraine as sites of imagination of feminist peace

 

Presentations followed by questions and discussion

 

 

3:30pm

 

Make way to Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 71000, Zmaja od Bosne 5, Sarajevo 71000, Bosnia & Herzegovina

 

4:30pm

Session 11: Closing Sound and Memory Intervention: at Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina

 

●       Thomas Gardner

●       Alma Zero

 

Performance: Cello and field recordings by Thomas Gardner

 

Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 71000, Zmaja od Bosne 5, Sarajevo 71000, Bosnia & Herzegovina

 

 

6:30pm

 

Closing speech by Steve Cross and drinks: Museum Terrace of Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina

 

71000, Zmaja od Bosne 5, Sarajevo 71000, Bosnia & Herzegovina

 

 

8:00pm

 

Speakers’ Conference Dinner: Restoran Careva Ćuprija Kundurdžiluk 10, Sarajevo 71000

 

 


 

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.

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Hotel Europe
Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina