VIRTUAL: Prague Heritages
Abstract
Our research explores memory as phenomenology that is embedded in sensory terms in each individual and through a traumatic experience — such as war – it can also become part of a collective identity that shapes the relationship of the survivors with the built environment during but also after the conflict. We explore the relationship between sound, memory, and the built environment in the context of the siege of Sarajevo (1991-1995). Fusion of the sensory and the geographical, the vast territories over which sonic violence exerts, is a complex experience with often long-lasting effects. In the aftermath of violence, sound also has the ability to carry within it the totality of traumatic memory, which can then be released upon the witness’s consciousness with all the immediacy of the unmediated experience at the moment of audition. In this paper, we seek to explore how space is altered and navigated through wartime sounds and how it shapes the memory of the survivors and their relationship with the city.
Lejla Odobašić Novo is a Bosnian-Canadian architect licensed by the Ontario Association of Architects. She is currently teaching as an Associate Professor at the International Burch University, Department of Architecture in Sarajevo. Her research lies within the intersection of culture and politics, exploring how this junction manifests itself through architecture in contested spaces.
Adnan Novalic