My Thousand Year Old Challenge

Project Team: Professor Caroline Sturdy Colls and New Vic Borderlines

This project received funding from the UKRI Impact Acceleration Accounts Fund.

Using an innovative interdisciplinary approach, our research and professional practice has raised awareness of genocide and other crimes committed against Bosniaks between 1992 and 1995.

Since its conception in 2023, the "My Thousand Year Old Challenge” project has sought to initiate a step change in policymaking and secure long-term commitments to education about genocide and crimes against humanity committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina, particularly with regards the genocide in Srebrenica. This transdisciplinary collaboration between the Centre of Archaeology and New Vic Borderlines combines creative methodologies, testimony and the ‘material culture’ processes at the heart of forensic archaeology. With a focus on collaboration, in 2023 alone, the project brought together 22 additional participants representing two local councils, the YMCA, the Workers’ Education Association, the Bosnia and Herzegovina Community Derby, the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA), Trades Union Congress, VIP Education and 3 UK Universities. Through discussion and co-design, participants explored and developed novel ways to bridge the gap between the ‘never again’ pledge (which emerged from understandings of the experiences during the Holocaust) and on-going, repeated acts of prejudice, discrimination and hate which continue to be present in our day to day lives. 

Conference "My Thousand Year Old Challenge” conference

Additional events in 2024, saw policymakers, members of the public and experts from a wide range of disciplines continuing to come together to learn and to question how more can be done to tackle these pressing issues.

 

Project activities and outputs included:

  • A field visit to Bosnia during which research materials were collected by the project team and postgraduate students. This trip was also supported by the charity Remembering Srebrenica.
  • Co-design and delivery of two workshops for local, regional and national policymakers in the UK during which a resource entitled Rescuing the Names was co-created and launched. This resource centres on objects belonging to victims of the Srebrenica genocide as a way to engage with the personal stories of those who were murdered and the events that led to their deaths. A letter was also provided by the Mothers of Srebrenica for inclusion in the resource which invites those who use it to pledge their commitment to countering prejudice and genocide denial.
  • An online global conversation event'Culture in Genocide/Holocaust Denial' held in partnership with the Florida International University Fauzia Jaffer Center for Muslim World Studies.
  • Adaptation of the play “My Thousand Year Old Land” (written by Sue Moffatt and Aida Salkic Haughton MBE), to include materials derived from our collaborative trip to Bosnia and Herzegovina and secondment discussions. The play has been performed across three runs at the New Vic Theatre in Stoke-on-Trent and on tour to Birmingham, Derby, Manchester, Dewsbury and Bradford (2023-2024).

 

Benefits and outcomes of the project include:

  • Increased awareness amongst UK policymakers about the crimes perpetrated in Srebrenica, a situation that furthers the mission statements of the Srebrenica Memorial Center, Remembering Srebrenica, Centre of Archaeology and New Vic Borderlines.
  • The creation of an innovative collaboration between archaeologists, historians, documentary theatre makers and specialists in cultural animation that we hope will generate and inspire further resources and events in the future.
  • The signing of two Memorandums of Understanding with the Mayor of Cazin’s Office and the Srebrenica Memorial Center and the building of relationships with 3 survivor organisations and the Museum of Genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
  • Use of the Rescuing the Names resource by event participants in their own places of work/communities and by additional partners nationally.
  • Research-informed teaching opportunities.

 

In 2024/2025, the project will continue to develop new educational tools, and the project team will deliver the Rescuing the Names workshop at a number of events in the UK and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

If you are interested in participating in a Rescuing the Names workshop or would like to access our resource packs, please contact Aida Salkic-Haughton MBE at New Vic Borderlines at AHaughton@newvictheatre.org.uk.