J.U. MES announced the official programme of the 28th edition of the Memory Module which is to be traditionally held from the beginning of April to 9th May and presented the official visual of this year’s Module. As part of the programme, among other events, important dates of Sarajevo’s history will be marked – 5th April (the beginning of the Siege of Sarajevo), 6th April (the Day of the City of Sarajevo), 2nd May and 9th May (Victory Day).

The director of the MESS Festival and Artistic Director of the Memory Module Nihad Kreševljaković, the Memory Module Coordinator Hana Bajrović Čardaković, the MESS Festival Producer Lejla Hasanbegović and graphic designer Sanja Kulenović discussed this year’s programme at today’s press conference. The programme has been published on the official web page of the MESS Festival, as well as on the Festival’s official Facebook https://www.facebook.com/festivalMESS and Instagram profiles.

Sanja Kulenović, the graphic designer at J.U. MES, who redesigned the visual identity of the Memory Module last year explained what had lead her in the process, “For the design of a new visual identity of the Memory Module, in line with the topic of the programme, I chose a retro-modern style, combining the authentic and brutal artistic style of our former state to design the letters (numerals) MM and the elegant, modern day font. MM represents the Memory Module monogram as well as the Roman numerals which, combined with the remaining two Arab numerals, represent the current year – 2023. This East-Western combination of the monogram and the numbers also stands as a symbol of our unique multiculturality. Apart from the aforementioned symbolisms, the focus of the visual is on the communication with a younger audience and the preservation of the culture of remembrance. This new visual identity has been designed to function well on diverse backgrounds. Hence, you may notice that even against the grainy, war photography, this year’s poster looks current.

The programme has various multimedia contents, therefore the audience will have an opportunity to attend different programmes, including exhibitions, theater performances, film screenings and book launches. The 2023 Memory Module opens on 5th April at the Sarajevo City Hall with the exhibition of photographs titled “Sarajevo, vječita Vijećnica” by photographer Rikard Larma, one of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s most prominent photographers and a man who recorded some of the most shocking scenes from the period of the Siege. This exhibition is organized in cooperation with the City of Sarajevo and the Sarajevo City Hall, to mark the beginning of the Siege.

Apart from Rikard Larma’s photographs, the audience will have an opportunity to see two other exhibitions. One is a photo exhibition by Ron Haviv and Miloš Cvetković which opens at the History Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina and is a part of the “Facing the Past in Serbia” programme, organized in cooperation with the Forum ZFD Serbia. The second exhibition is an authorial project titled “Between Fears and Hope” by Belgian photographer Fabrice Dekoninck depicting the post-war reality of Srebrenica, Sarajevo and Prijedor. At the end of April, the public will be introduced to a new photography monograph titled “Sarajevo 1992-1996” by Italian photographer Enrico Dagnino, published by the Kuma Institute. The monograph contains more than a hundred photographs by Dagnino. This is a visual document about the City of Sarajevo and its people in the period of the siege, complemented with Dagnino’s notes and drawings he made at the time. As part of the film programme, there will be a BH premiere of the documentary film titled “Our Family Garden” by Smirna Kulenović, based on the artist’s performance “Prva Ženska Linija” and the documentary film “Transforming Tomorrow” directed by Dino Mustafić. In cooperation with the International Burch University and the History Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a multimedia installation titled “The Sounds of War” by Haris Sahačić will be set up, within which a panel discussion will also be organized. As for the theatre programme, there will be two performances – “Flour in the Veins” by Boris Liješević, in cooperation with the Memorial Fund and the Sarajevo War Theater production of “Visiting Mr. Green”.

Lejla Hasanbegović, MESS Producer, reminisced how it all began in the first place. “Everything that was done during the siege of Sarajevo was a testimony of the importance of art in every man’s life. Let me just remind you of some of the things that were done as part of the MESS Festival at the time, for it would take too much time to list everything. Peter Schumann came to Sarajevo several times and worked with some of our most prominent contemporary directors Jasmila Žbanić and Aida Begić. Back then in Sarajevo, Susan Sontag staged a production of “Waiting for Godot”. I will use this opportunity to announce that Al Jazeera will broadcast the documentary film “Don’t Cry for me Sarajevo – Susan Sontag in Sarajevo”. Moreover, I would like to announce a co-production of the Sarajevo War Theater Sartr and our friends from Hungary, based on a text by Susan Sontag titled “Alice in Bed”. In that period, there were also collaborations with Vanessa Redgrave, Massimo Schuster and many other artists. Most importantly, there was our audience who came to see our performances and other events while they were under severest fire. All these things were reason enough for us to start the Memory Module back in 1995, before the war ended. And this is why this programme is important for all of us.”

This year’s edition of the Memory Module closes on 9th May (Victory Day) with a grand performance of the Slovenian band Laibach. It is a theatre performance titled “Laibach – Wir sind das Volk” which will be performed at the Sarajevo National Theater. Laibach’s connection to Sarajevo goes back to the war period when this band performed a concert at the Sarajevo National Theater on the day the Dayton Peace Agreement was signed. Before the performance, the MESS Festival Administration will, for the sixth time, award the annual Award for the Contribution to the Preservation of the Culture of Remembrance.

“The value of the Memory Module does not exclusively lie in high-quality programmes dealing with the culture of remembrance but also in the mutual contacts and relationships among people who keep those remembrances alive through art and who share the same ethical principles. We are therefore glad that this year’s edition of the Memory Module is closing with a performance by the outstanding Laibach. They are a group of people who understood what Sarajevo and Bosnia meant to the world in the most challenging of times. Right after our first contact with them, when we first started negotiating their visit, we knew that that was not going to be a mere business cooperation, but a communication with friends dedicated to a joint mission in which art served as a means to make this world a more sensible place. I believe that proof of the importance of our programme is reflected in the fact that the members of Laibach were the ones who contacted us and expressed their desire to revisit Sarajevo after almost thirty years. It is therefore that we always emphasize that the cultural resistance phenomenon which was born in the 1990s in besieged Sarajevo and which, among other things, generated the Memory Module, is an important and vital part, not only of our own but also of the European cultural heritage”, said Hana Bajrović, the Memory Module Coordinator.

Apart from presenting the programme, the director of J.U. MES, ended the press conference by reminding everyone of the importance of the Memory Module, adding that “from 1995 onwards, after this programme was launched, there were about 200 different programmes within the Memory Module, including photo exhibitions, various other exhibitions, lectures, film screenings, theater performances, art performances, conferences and book launches. The Memory Module has gone through different phases and has grown into a proper festival of culture of remembrance. As a little oddity, it is noteworthy that it is one of the first programmes that are centered around the “culture of remembrance”, interpreting this notion that first appeared in Europe in the 1990s. In that sense, this year’s programme is safeguarding the high standards that were set in previous decades.”

All the activities of the MESS Festival can be followed on MESS Festival Facebook and Instagram profiles as well as on the MESS Festival official web page.