ART AND RECONCILIATION - THE PCRC AND ASBO MAGAZINE: SUSTAINING VISUAL PEACEBUILDING, EMPOWERING YOUTH, AND EMBEDDING IMPACT

This project builds on research and collaboration from the AHRC/PACCS/GCRF 'Art and Reconciliation: Conflict, Culture and Community' project, specifically building on the original objectives: (a) to investigate the history and potential of artistic and creative cultural practices and objects in processes and outcomes of post-conflict reconciliation, forgetting, remembering and forgiving; and (b) to developing creative artistic practices and artifacts in relation to, and in collaboration with, particular communities. In particular, it will develop an innovative and creative partnership between the Post Conflict Research Center (PCRC), Sarajevo (Bosnia and Hercegovina) and the project investigators, an innovative and creative conceptual and practical change in which the PCRC produced a new dissemination model, producing a pilot, bold, landmark publication - a magazine, ASBO - for the first time and gained a 'new life', an unanticipated yet highly successful result of the AHRC-PACCS project collaboration. This project will provide an opportunity to develop a more sustainable publication and dissemination model for the work of the youth correspondents by supporting the production and distribution of ASBO. ASBO has given a new strand of life to the PCRC's mission to foster visually-based cross-community activity and build youth capacity in the country, addressing the war of the 1990s and its aftermath. The proposed project will significantly enhance and embed this new aspect of the PCRC's role and life, sustaining employment, developing cultural life and fostering post-conflict peace and security. In doing so, it will address all three of the Additional Requirements for the AHRC Impact and Engagement GCRF Highlight Call, as follows: i) it will deliver significant cultural impact and research-led innovation, in line with UN Sustainable Development Goals' (SDG) targets (SDG 4 on culture's contribution to sustainable development ; SDG 8 on job creation and also creativity and innovation; and SDG 11 on protecting and safeguarding cultural heritage; it might also contingently address SDG 12 on sustainable tourism, creating jobs and promoting local culture); (ii) it will produce outcomes of significant value to PCRC and the Balkan Diskurs Youth Correspondents Programme, including setting the foundation for a sustainable publication and dissemination strategy for their work (iii) the project has been co-designed with Velma Saric, Director of the PCRC, a peace-building organisation in an ODA LMIC country, which has no public funding.

The PCRC and the investigators will jointly implement a scheme of research and practice bringing a research-led fresh perspective. We will initiate a series of open calls for training and commissions to develop creative visual material through open studios, artist workshops and participatory-community engagement activities and events in partnership, inviting youth artists/photographers to innovate and create to bring new interpretations to in relation to the history of the country, potentially to be included in ASBO. This will offer young people and PCRC the opportunity and inspiration to make decisive creative interventions, and to enhance the cultural landscape of post-conflict Sarajevo and Bosnia and Hercegovina, fostering engagement with art and memory. The joint project will also permit further research and development of evaluation methods and approaches inherent in the original project, which will also benefit a range of funders, including UNDP, which also advised on project design.

This project is co-designed with impact at its core. The primary beneficiary will be PCRC, which is a project partner. PCRC will benefit in several ways: (a) financially, supporting jobs, activities and contributing to its sustainability - the PCRC as non-partisan NGO receives no public funding and relies on grants and donations to survive; (b) development of an innovative and creative new aspect to its role and activity, embedding the ASBO magazine as a significant vehicle for forum inviting artistic contributions that will bring new interpretations; (c) holding public exhibitions that will enhance its public profile nationally and internationally; (d) establishing new relationships with youth photographers and creative artists; (e) organising participatory and community engagement activities, such as photgraphic and creative workshops, open across inter-communal boundaries; (f) hosting educational visits and events, engaging with artists and youth photographers, commissioned works, exhibitions and workshops; (g) attracting new audiences; (h) having a new basis for future research and practice activities and funding proposals.

The project will be of key interest to practitioners engaged at all levels in post-conflict reconciliation and sustainable development initiatives - one impetus for the proposed research was an enquiry from UNDP of how to understand and evaluate critically the variety of activities, including, notably, visual arts, funded under the umbrella of reconciliation in the Western Balkans. The proposal has been developed in discussion with Dr Ivan Zverzhanovski, UNDP Regional Partnerships Advisor, who will engage with the project as an advisor.

The project will benefit youth in Bosnia and Hercegovina, providing relatively rare opportunities and open calls for commissioned work in grounded contexts - which provide not only the chance of commissions and financial income, but also opportunities for training, education, inspiration and creation, and to have works published in an innovative publication, with significant reach, if successful. It will also benefit youth practitioners by offering calls for commissions and opportunities to work with PCRC and the investigators to explore and develop ideas and new work. Beyond those who are commissioned or selected, the evidence of the open call as part of the AHRC-PACCS project is that many more artists than those actually selected benefit from the process and from involvement in workshops both personally and professionally, gaining new perspectives on their practice and career - one of the most surprising and pleasing features of the Artists' Workshop that we held in Sarajevo in June 2018 was that several of those who had applied to the open call but not been selected attended and expressed unprompted views about the benefits the open call had brought, even without their having been successful in the competition.

Finally, the project will be of benefit to the audiences that engage with PCRC - including new and wider audiences that the more copies and wider distribution of ASBO magazine can bring, as well as the reach of the two new editions of it proposed can bring (this was a lesson of the AHRC-PACCS project activity in Sarajevo). The project will allow PCRC to develop its relationship with audiences and to engage communities in post-conflict Bosnia and Hercegovina, including engaging publics not only in the Sarajevo Canton, but across the country