Dialogue in creating a space of commemoration. Participants – challenges – conditions.

Event program

On May 20, 2024, a training workshop was held in Wrocław for various groups preparing celebrations and commemorative activities. The aim was to equip participants with useful tools and methods for organizing multi-directional, inclusive commemoration activities.
In the first part of our meeting, representatives of three foundations: Formy Wspólne from Warsaw, Urban Memory from Wrocław and Brama Cukermana from Będzin talked about the background of working with places with difficult memory, on the example of Sobibór, the extermination camp and the Jewish cemetery at ul. Gwarna in Wrocław and the Fighters' House in the former ghetto in Będzin. They shared their knowledge about the role of broad consultations that should precede the creation of a commemoration project. After a short break, we invited all participants to an open discussion on the role of dialogue in the design process, cooperation and negotiations regarding sensitive places and topics with social resonance. We wondered where investors and designers most often make mistakes and how to avoid them so that these places do not divide, but build a community. The event was addressed to all interested parties, but primarily to creators, designers, representatives of public administration and social organizations that have or would like to have an influence on the co-creation of memorial sites.
The aim of the workshops was to confront experiences and consider the best ways to obtain the widest possible social support for issues related to commemoration and to combine skills acquired in different cities, with different social groups, in different environments.