Working Group 1: Memory Walls

Working Group 1 focuses on mnemonic representations in graffiti, street art, and murals, drawing parallels to their digital counterparts, such as memes.

Despite their ephemeral nature, murals are challenging traditional forms of sites of memory (monuments, memorial museums, commemorations) as the most visible forms of memory activism in public space. Although not always long-lasting, murals and graffiti also have the ability to react to current events in public space, such as the war in Ukraine, which have appeared throughout the world since early 2022. 

How does the muralization of the 20th century fit into the existing memoryscapes in Croatia, Slovenia, Italy, and other neighboring countries? How do murals engage in memory work, how do they depict dominant national narratives or the “Other” (visually, semiotically, spatially), and what is the subversive potential of street art? Local fieldwork will be placed into a transnational context, and will also involve observing street art festivals that challenge nation-building murals, as well as subversive techniques in graffiti, street art, and murals (such as ad-busting) and digital remediation of mural images. 

Of particular interest to MEMPOP is the muralization of the conflict of the 1990s, which is increasingly visible in Croatia, as well as both positive and negative representations of WW2 actors. The Slovenian partner focusses on the engagement of positive and negative memories of Yugoslavia communicated through street art and graffiti, as well as with contemporary sociopolitical issues (e.g. the Covid-19 pandemic).

The objective of WG1 is to design a typology of mnemonic murals in Croatia, Slovenia, the northern Adriatic borderlands, and neighboring post-Yugoslav countries, accounting for the messages conveyed, social functions, visual styles, narrative tropes, and performative aspects of muralization.