Constructive Collaboration: Reframing Remembrance and Contextualization of Abstractive Ideas on a Historic Site

Abstract:The physical memorialization of the process of remembrance attempts to encompass a collective memory charged with questions of whose memory, or whose past is being represented (Selimovic 2013). Conflict is often seen in causal terms, through a narrative of “who did what to whom” or a chronology of war and peace. Yet to memorialize the conflict and sacrifice of a multitude at a historical distance creates enormous responsibility, making sacred the concept or purpose rather than the individual. Distance exercises an influence on how history is understood, and distance and detachment are elevated to a privileged position with respect to knowledge of the past (Salber Phillips 2013). This paper aims to redress the balance and explore how spatiality and memory construct a personal experience that reflects the time of conflict from a historical distance.