On the 15-16 September we organised a symposium “Memory Culture in Flux: From Post-Yugoslavia to Conceptual Problems”. It took place in Ljubljana, at ZRC SAZU and Faculty of Arts, and was organised by Gal Kirn and Ana Hofman (1 day), researchers in the project “Protests, artistic practices and culture of memory in the post-Yugoslav context”; supported by ARRS (Slovenian research agency), and also together with Cecilia Sjöholm and Rebecka Thor (2 day), supported by Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies.
What role has memory, memorial and historical revisionism played in the postsocialist transition, in creation of new nation-states in (post)Yugoslav context? If new official state memory, founded on nationalist glories and victimhood, overwritten the former official state memory, traces of alternative remainders and nostalgic reactions and structural feeling evidently resurfaced in multiple collective practices? Due to a strong and negative orientation towards Yugoslav socialist and revolutionary legacies, the persistence of more progressive and nostalgic structural feelings among the wide population across ethnic borders points to a deep disagreement that carries political, and economic, and not only cultural implications. Invited papers will address diverse topics that deal with the official discourses and counter-hegemonic practices, both its emancipatory potentials and its limits, exhaustion in the deepening of social and economic rifts across the post-Yugoslav region.
The workshop included a day on “Memory culture in flux — conceptual workshop.” Memorial culture has become a question of politics, ideology, perspective, and aesthetic means, involved in antagonistic struggles. But the construction of memorial culture is also a process in flux — what is it, who has the “right” to it, and what impact does it have?
Can critical practices help construe new forms of memory culture, disputing simplified narratives of nationalism and heroism? The workshop focused on concepts that are at sway not just with regards to the cultural and critical production surrounding the war in former Yugoslavia, but in memory culture at large, presenting some of the key concepts in focus for contemporary discussion.