Activities
Explore the recent activities of our members, including new programs they have developed, workshops and conferences they have engaged in and new collaborative activities sites have conducted in their regions and across common themes.
New Book Free Derry Wall Chronicles Public Response to Iconic Site (Northern Ireland)
‘What does Free Derry Wall mean to you?’ When the Museum of the Free Derry invited the general public to react to this open-ended question, the responses were varied and came from local residents, politicians, artists, activists, national figures and visitors to the city. Free Derry Wall refers to the wall in the city of Derry where the words ‘You Are Now Entering Free Derry’ were first handwritten in January 1969. This location became a focal point for many tumultuous events related to the conflict in N. Ireland. To some, the Wall is a symbol of freedom, a national monument, political icon, war memorial, community notice board, or a public sculpture. To others, it is an anachronism, contested space, a vehicle for propaganda, a spent force, clichéd tourist attraction, or a meaningless entity of bricks, mortar and paint. In Free Derry Wall, a new book published on the site’s 40th anniversary, the Museum of Free Derry showcases these varied perspectives and experiences, collected over the past 10 years. The book reflects what has been going on around the Wall and the world over time, and explores and debates the many meanings the Wall held and still holds today.
Members of the International Coalition can purchase Free Derry Wall at the discounted price of £10. If you want to order the book, please e-mail info@ghpress.com and refer to the International Coalition.
Diversity Challenges creates a safe space for dialogue with “After Conflict Experiences” (Northern Ireland)
Diversity Challenges’ new dialogue program, “After Conflict Experiences”, aims to promote reconciliation and shared understanding of the recent conflict in and about Northern Ireland. Diversity Challenges works to assist culturally specific groups in Northern Ireland to integrate community relations principles and considerations in all aspects of their work.
“After Conflict Experiences”, supported by the Coalition’s Project Support Fund, will bring together a variety of participants, including those who served during the conflict, to reflect and talk openly with each other in a safe space about their different experiences and perspectives of the conflict. These talks will begin with participants visiting and photographing identified sites of conflict. The program aims to build relationships between the participants and connect them with local community organizations that support Diversity Challenges’ work and goals. Building on this pilot, Diversity Challenges will develop “After Conflict Experiences” into a comprehensive program that increases understanding and offers support to those affected by the conflict in Northern Ireland.
Healing Through Remembering (Northern Ireland) Exchanges Experiences with the House of the Wannsee Conference (Berlin) to Develop New Exhibit
In the aftermath of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Healing Through Remembering will travel to Berlin to participate in a staff exchange with the House of the Wannsee Conference and visit other local museums remembering conflict. Healing Through Remembering (HTR) is an extensive cross-community project where individual members with differing political, social and religious perspectives come together to focus on how best to deal with the past relating to the conflict in and about Northern Ireland. The staff exchange, supported by the Coalition’s Project Support Fund, will enable HTR to learn from the experience of the House of the Wannsee Conference – where Nazi leadership in 1942 discussed the planned deportation and murder of all European Jews – in becoming a well accepted museum that commemorates histories of conflict while promoting understanding and dialogue about the issues surrounding it. HTR will also visit other local museums such as the Stasi Prison Museum and the DDR Museum – the only museum dedicated to remembering the everyday life in the former East Germany. HTR will develop an exhibition on “Everyday Objects Transformed by Conflict”. The exhibition will be a step forward in creating a Living Memorial Museum in Northern Ireland, a museum that acknowledges the past conflict, considers its relationship to the present and provides a space “to imagine a better future.”
Núcleo Memoria Creates Ongoing Dialogue with Monthly Youth Program at Memorial de la Resistencia. (Brazil)
“Sabados Resistentes” (“Resisting Saturdays”), is a dialogue program of Núcleo de Preservação da Memória Política (Núcleo Memoria) that uses lectures, theater performances and documentaries to lead young people into debate and discussion about the history of the dictatorship in Brazil and how it relates to current experiences. The program takes place at Memorial de Resistencia de Sao Paulo (Memorial of the Resistance in Sao Paolo)- housed in the old headquarters of San Paulo’s State Department of Political and Social Order of the State – and uses the politically charged history of the site to open dialogue on issues like state terrorism and torture. 
Supported by the Coalition’s Project Support Fund”, Núcleo Memoria will now expand this program, organizing “Sabados Resistentes” every month until June 2010. The expanded program will now invite international and national experts to share their experiences and will offer new materials to educate youth about Brazil’s dictatorship and its contemporary legacy. Núcleo Memoria is a working group of the Forum Permanente de ex presos y perseguidos políticos de Sao Paulo (Permanent Forum of Former Prisoners and Political Refugees from Sao Paulo), an institution founded to defend the interests of former political prisoners during the military dictatorship in Brazil (1964-1985). Through human rights and educational efforts, Núcleo Memoria aims to preserve the memory of people’s struggle against the illegal military regime that lasted 21 years in Brazil.
“Out of the Kitchen” Strengthens Dialogue at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum (USA)
The Lower East Side Tenement Museum will expand opportunities for visitors to engage in open dialogue by launching “Out of the Kitchen”, a revision of the Museum’s well-known “Kitchen Conversations” dialogue program. Through tours of the restored apartments of its landmark tenement building at 97 Orchard street, home to 7,000 people from over 20 nations between 1863 and 1935, the Lower East Side Tenement Museum invites visitors to “meet” the families who lived there. Using these individual, human stories as a starting point, the Museum held “Kitchen Conversations” – a program for visitors to engage in open conversation about contemporary immigration experiences and issues. Now, through the Coalition’s Project Support Fund, the Lower East Side Tenement Museum will expand the “Kitchen Conversations” program to encourage open dialogue throughout a tour experience, allowing participants to draw on the emotions evoked by being in the tenement apartments and connect with contemporary immigration experiences.
Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum launches first educational outreach program (Cambodia)
As Cambodia hold its landmark trials to bring to justice architects of the Khmer Rouge genocide, the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum is launching its first educational program geared towards Cambodian secondary school students. The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum is a former high school that was used as a prison by the Khmer Rouge regime from its rise to power in 1975 to its fall in 1979. The buildings at Tuol Sleng are preserved as they were left when the Khmer Rouge were driven out in 1979. The Museum commemorates the millions of Cambodians who lost their lives to the Khmer Rouge, and aims to educate future generations on this history relating it contemporary human rights issues, democratic freedom and tolerance. The Museum’s new educational program, supported by the Coalition’s Project Support Fund, will bring Cambodian students weekly to the site over a ten-month period, to share the history of the Khmer Rouge genocide and engage the students in discussion about its legacies in Cambodian society today. The program seeks to provide Cambodian youth with knowledge and ways to reconcile past atrocities and promote peace and understanding in the future.
Documentary Film “La Memoria Barrial” shows neighborhood memories of State Terrorism (Mendoza, Argentina)
On November 6, 2009, La Casa por la Memoria y la Cultura Popular, (The House for Memory and Popular Culture Public Library) premiered the documentary “La Memoria Barrial” (“Neighborhood Memory”) in Mendoza, Argentina. The documentary, supported by the Coalition’s Project Support Fund, is a way for people to explore and confront their experiences of the military dictatorships, from a personal and local perspective. “La Memoria Barrial” tells the story of Hector “Flaco” Pringles, resident of Mendoza and leader of the Peronist Youth – a popular youth militancy – who was murdered in November 1975. By reconstructing his life and death, the documentary sheds light on the life and spirit of the Peronist Youth and the Mendoza community, and explores the actions of paramilitary groups and their relationship with the state. The documentary also features stories of local residents, collected through dialogue sessions. La Casa por la Memoria y la Cultura develops educational materials, about Argentina’s dictatorships, as a basis for dialogue. It works to include local experiences and memories of the dictatorships, moving beyond the history on the provincial or national level. It aims to make these stories part of public history to engage local communities in confronting and discussing their own experiences and understand how State Terrorism grew and developed in Mendoza and Argentina.
The premier of the documentary was a great success and the large turnout earned the film a spot in the first Documentary Film Festival organized by the Secretary of Culture of the Government of Mendoza. The Library also plans to present the documentary in Buenos Aires and it in its ongoing course, “Making History: Identity and Memory,” at schools and community centers. Read the article about “La Memoria Barrial” in Veintitrés here.