Collection day refers to a public event where individuals are invited to share objects with personal and symbolic significance. These can provide a unique perspective that is often lacking in official documents. The concept initially developed in the U.S. as “History Harvest” has evolved with the growth of interest in oral history and the documentation of collective memory. It plays a crucial role in documenting complex and sometimes overlooked historical narratives, such as those related to the World Wars and, for the Moj Dom project, the aftermath of the Yugoslav Wars.
Schematically, a collection could provide a unique perspective that is often lacking in official documents. During these events, researchers collect the stories associated with each object, digitally archive them, and highlight their collective and historical value. However, the physical objects remain with their owners. Going deep into this practice is part of a broader initiative to gather and preserve different perspectives and memories which may not be included in official historical records. It can be applied in different study contexts but is particularly suitable when one research group wants to investigate a historical event that has affected a large number of people who have not subsequently made a public account of it or when researchers are unable to precisely define the group of people interested in their research question, such as single individuals or those who identify with a specific community.
The collection day is presented as an open appeal to the public, to which researchers pose a particular question and ask to respond by identifying a specific object in their possession to be presented in one particular place and day. This means that social and historical research techniques also intercept communication sciences, as it will be necessary to get the communication to the specific target. Even if the target is not a word usually specific to historical sciences, with this, we mean to indicate the characteristics of the people to whom the research question is addressed: people who have lived in a given place, who have experienced a specific event; who have been in a specific place and period or recognize themselves in a particular community etc. Most of the people who may be interested in a collection day do not perceive themselves as “official” witnesses (Wieviorka 2006) since the collection aims precisely to collect further stories in addition to those already collected, “beyond” what has already been mapped. To do so, it seeks to include the most significant number of people who probably have never thought of having something unique to say about that event. This is why communication must be well planned, to make people perceive that each story can contribute to the general plot of facts and historical reconstructions. In the field of oral history, each voice is a witness.
The awareness that every personal experience contributes to the historical construct implies a democratization not only of sources and witnesses (which is no longer reduced to a few “official” voices) but also a democratization of history itself, which becomes common to all, created by the – small or large – actions of each. For this reason, collection days have increasingly become a handy tool for those who practice historical research also through the collection of oral sources and the analysis of community memories that until that moment have been excluded from the official story, from History with a capital H, for ethnic reasons, economic marginalization, gender, religion and so on.
Healing through sharing
Collection day is a powerful tool for exploring traumatic memories. It offers a supportive environment for individuals to share and digitize personal artefacts connected to their experiences. Sharing photos, objects, and testimonies that hold deep emotional significance helps people reflect on and express their traumatic memories.
In addition to individual healing, collection days contribute to creating collective memory. By digitizing and archiving personal items, this participatory approach helps preserve personal histories, enabling future generations to access and study them. Moreover, the educational value of these artefacts fosters historical awareness and empathy, particularly among younger generations, who gain a better understanding of trauma and its long-lasting effects.
Notes and portraits from the Moj Dom collection days
The collections organised by Lapsus in the course of different projects follow a similar course structure. However, they always generate different results, depending on the various responses that a community or group of people give—or do not give—to the researchers’ request. The first phase always concerns the identification of a place in which to carry out the collection, which can have both the technical and symbolic characteristics to host the initiative.
Therefore, the choice of location is always delicate and conditioned by the context. During the Moj Dom collection days, realized between September 2023 and January 2024 and organized together with Codici, in some contexts (Piacenza and Verona), a place that was very connected with the community invited to the collection was chosen. A third neutral location was chosen in others (such as Milan and Vicenza).
Together with the place, thoughts are generated on the forms of information, communication and engagement of the people to be included. Suppose reference is made to a specific, cohesive community in dialogue. In that case, the choice falls to identifying active persons within the group who can facilitate the dissemination of the message and generate the context of trust necessary for people to choose to participate. This person or group may be a member of a specific association working with the community, a religious representative, a cultural mediator, or a person at the centre of network relationships related to the collection theme. In some cases, as in Vicenza, even a venue such as a restaurant serving Serbian cuisine can become a place to spread the word about the planned activity and invite different community members to participate.
The actual process of gathering witnesses and sources is relatively straightforward and follows a simple structure. On arrival at the location, the participant meets a person from the research team designated to make him or her feel at ease, primarily giving all the information about the event and the future of the material collected. The collection process is centred on a gift mechanism: communities donate their time, individuals donate trust, witnesses donate a fragment of their story, and those who have carefully preserved an object donate its image and classification within an archive whose mechanisms may be highly obscure to the uninitiated. It is, therefore, essential to establish from the outset an environment in which the recognition of the gift that people make to the research group is clear and in which the valorisation of the effort of the individual who chooses to participate and the valorisation of the story and the donated object is evident.
After the reception, each person is invited to an interview dialogue with an individual researcher, who, after answering any doubts and having the privacy documents signed, will interview the object’s history and, through it, of the participating person. The researchers mark the information in a standard form, in which the recognition metadata is included in addition to the history. Each story is catalogued with an alphanumeric code associated with the collected object. After the interview, which can vary from a few minutes to an hour, depending on the details included and the emotional load it carries, the person is accompanied by another researcher, who scans or photographs the object with an alphanumeric code.
Video documentation
For Moj Dom, it was decided to make video portraits of the participants, in which, in addition to the object, the participant’s face and voice were also collected, involving a professional photographer, Marco Carmignan. The photographer asked them to repeat in front of the camera why they had chosen that object to symbolize their story. Although the camera might have intimidated some people, most agreed to be portrayed – often involved in the image of the person (partner, relative or friend) who had accompanied them that day. Here is another typical feature of collections: people often participate accompanied by someone who comes to the event as an emotional support or a companion, but after a while, this person also finds himself emotionally involved in donating memory. It is, therefore, not unusual to see people in collections who initially announce themselves as only companions («I have nothing interesting to tell; he/she will tell you something interesting»). Then, after seeing how the activity works, they ask to give an interview, looking in their pockets for an object that can act as a donation or recalling it and describing it to the researchers. For this reason, it is not unusual to find the wording «did not bring an object but wanted to give the interview» in the metadata sheets of Moj Dom collections. Even if this “undermines” the objectives of the collection, this is always encouraged when it is proposed because it becomes clear that the object has a purely projective value and triggers memories but that the centre of the collection remains the experience expressed by the words of the participants.
It is important to always remember that interviewees may feel anxious about meeting the researcher’s expectations at the beginning of each interview. Addressing this anxiety early on, during the initial intake process, is crucial to enabling people to share what is important to them in response to the question rather than trying to guess what the researcher might want to hear.
Young people’s involvement in Piacenza
The collection organized in Piacenza saw the participation of very young people, from adolescents of 14 years old up to young people of 25 or 26. The young people, born in Italy or migrated in the very early years of life, all shared the common Bosnian origin of their families, many natives of Prijedor. All of them are protagonists of the life of the cultural and religious centre that hosted the collection, where they decided to give life to a youth association that could provide a sense of community and participation to young people who, like them, live in Italy but with Bosnian origins. What can commonly be defined in mainstream language as a second generation, on that occasion, intervened as a first and particular new generation. It led to telling events experienced by their parents and grandparents, presenting their own stories, requests, problems and passions, including the rediscovery of religious faith as an element of community and meeting among peers.
Deepening community bonds in Verona
The one in Verona, which took place in the Bosnian Islamic Community’s hall of worship, was characterized as an intimate community moment, in which the interviews took longer because the interviewees showed a need for a story that went beyond the events and touched on a self-reflection on themselves, as individuals and as a community.
Contrasts Between Milan and Vicenza Events
Another interesting comparison is between the collection day organized in Milan and Vicenza. Both were organized during the winter period; the first tried to include a national community, but also activity and experience in the reception and aid humanitarian sector structured in northern Italy in the 90s in civil society in response to the wars in the former Yugoslavia, launching a call in a large city. To do so, a neutral space was chosen, and the support of a virtual community was gathered around a social page with socio-political updates on the Balkans. The context proved highly challenging, attracting a minimal number of people.
In Vicenza, however, the different communities and individuals, including single people born in the former Yugoslavia, people and families belonging to the various Serbian communities active in the territory, and families and single people who lived in the Vicenza area in the 1990s, were part of organized groups and civil society organizations. These groups collected funds and aid for the Yugoslav territories affected by the conflict. At the same time, they provided long-term shelter for minors and children who were victims of the conflict.
The engagement took place through some people active in both communities, who directly contacted their networks, spread the information and took the opportunity to call groups of people who had had a close relationship in the past and who had lost sight of each other over the years, to use the event as a moment of reunion and sociality. The event, organized in a third (or neutral) space, was well attended because it was an opportunity for meeting, exchange and sociality. At the time of the collection, a documentary linked to the project followed, and a dinner of Serbian food was organized specifically for the occasion. Around the tables with food, researchers, photographers, witnesses, displaced people, and host families found themselves in a new free form, no longer in the “role” given by the research event but of the human connection of stories, histories, opinions, and choices.
These quick examples hopefully can serve to create an idea of the different variants that a collection day can unfold. Even if organized within a few months and focusing on the same research theme, these examples demonstrate different variants that can arise using the same methodologies. Just like fieldwork in social and historical research, especially when it involves individuals and communities sharing their stories, the collection of oral sources must be adaptable to include and encourage active listening from all participants.
Curating and preserving personal histories
Laboratorio Lapsus and Codici have successfully utilized these initiatives to categorize and analyze collected items, creating an exhibition that preserves and recognises these valuable personal and collective histories. Following the collection phase, Laboratorio Lapsus took the time to analyze the items gathered. Utilizing a process of clustering by keywords, they meticulously curated the items to create an exhibition that would truly captivate and engage the audience.
This work ensures that the emotional and historical narratives associated with these memories are accessible for future research and reflection, emphasizing their ongoing relevance.
