en/counter/points is a investigates how and why multiple heritages, memories, processes of attachment and belonging to and in cultural spaces and places, are being (re)negotiated during a time of European migration and identity ‘crises’. By analysing problematic notions of ‘integration’, examining participatory, dialogic cultural activities, activism and appropriations in (and of) public spaces we question their perceived and actual impacts on individuals, society, culture and on public space in return. Such (re)negotiations enable us to untangle the complexity of culture, integration and public space(s) on a transnational, European level.
In this research project Claske Vos will examine attempts by different actors in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Northern Macedonia and Serbia to include the legacies of socialism into the European public space, including various grass-roots cultural platforms (activists, NGOs and community organisations) as well as institutions to make visible these sensitive and contested aspects of Europe’s past, and to achieve recognition within the history and memory of Europe. Claske Vos will focus on attempts by cultural workers in Southeast Europe to (re)inscribe themselves in a larger European cultural space by creating autonomous and transnational spaces of cooperation. Such cultural workers operate in an environment affected by the transition to post-socialist settings and have to manoeuvre in a field marked by centralization, a lack of autonomy, increasing privatization and re-nationalization. EU funding, independent European foundations and nationally based funding programmes enable them to inscribe themselves in a new European cultural space, counterbalancing official dealings with art, heritage and memory.
Eckersley, S., & Vos, C. (Eds.) (2023). Diversity of Belonging in Europe: Public Spaces, Contested Places, Cultural Encounters. (Critical Heritages of Europe). Routledge. Advance online publication.