Exhibition “Targeting Monuments – Targeting History and Memory”
In the period from 4 April until 16 April the exhibition Targeting Monuments – Targeting History and Memory can be seen in the Atrium of the City Hall in The Hague.
The opening of the exhibition will be on April 4 at 19:00 hours at the Atrium of the City Hall in The Hague.
The opening speeches will be given by Sneška Quaedvlieg-Mihailović, Europa Nostra’s Secretary General, Branka Benčić, the curator of the exhibition Targeting Monuments, and Mirko Klarin, the director of SENSE – Centre for Transitional Justice and the author of the interactive narrative Targeting History and Memory.
Judge Carmel Agius, the last President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) will open the exhibition.
The exhibition Targeting monuments – Targeting History and Memory is dedicated to the systematic destruction of cultural and religious objects in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Kosovo during the wars in the former Yugoslavia from 1991 to 1999.
The exhibition is based on the interactive narrative Targeting History and Memory, which shows the way in which crimes against cultural, historical and religious heritage were investigated, reconstructed, and processed at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia Tribunal in The Hague (ICTY).
The exhibition is structured on processed criminal cases – the shelling of the Old Town in Dubrovnik, the burning of the Sarajevo City Hall, the destruction of the Old Bridge in Mostar, the destruction of cultural and religious objects in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo – and examples of the unprocessed devastation of monuments in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo. Among those, numerous attacks on memorials to the People’s Liberation Movement and Antifascist Struggle in Croatia stand out. No one is being held responsible for their destruction.
The exhibition presents documents as well as photographs by wartime photographers, cultural heritage researchers and conservationists, as well as photographs by Damir Fabijanić, Nenad Gattin, Wade Goddard, Milomir Kovačević, Danilo Krstanović, Pavo Urban.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a poetic-experimental documentary Monument (2015) directed by Igor Grubić, which will be screened at Filmhuis Den Haag (Spui 191, The Hague).
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue with texts by Višnja Kisić, Helen Walasek, and András Riedelmayer.
In 2017, the exhibition Targeting Monuments – Targeting History and Memory was held in Zagreb (Glyptotheque of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts), Belgrade (Centre for Cultural Decontamination), Sarajevo (Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina), and Pula (SENSE – Centre for Transitional Justice).
Production: SENSE – Centre for Transitional Justice and Documenta – Centre for Dealing with the Past / Project managers: Mirko Klarin, Eugen Jakovčić / Project advisors: Mina Vidaković, Vesna Teršelič / Project coordinator: Maja Dubljević / Curator: Branka Benčić / Co-curator: Tihana Puc / Expert associate for the selection of photos: Sandra Vitaljić / Graphic design and exhibition setup: Barbara Blasin.
The exhibition project Targeting Monuments – Targeting History and Memory was funded with the support from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the European Union under the programme “Europe for Citizens”.
Partner organizations: SENSE – Centre for Transitional Justice Pula, Documenta – Centre for Dealing with the Past Zagreb, Humanitarian Law Centre Belgrade, Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina Sarajevo, Europa Nostra The Hague.
