Co-curating with the Public: Using Object Stories to Understand Family Memory and Modern Armed Conflict

ID: WMA2026_609

Track:

We propose a workshop to share the practices developed to capture the generational impact, especially the family legacy, of the experiences of modern war through objects. We will demonstrate how to build accessible, co-curated community digital archives that preserve material things, audio, and written transcripts that situate objects in family memory and connect them to larger memories of these fraught histories.

Session Information

Format: Regular session/panel (roundtable, single speaker, etc.)

Uniqueness: We worked with students and community partners to document the material culture embodying memories of armed conflict to preserve stories most meaningful to our community.

Objectives:

We offer workshop participants an engaging session where they will develop greater empathy for the lasting and generational impact of armed conflict on families and communities. We hope that by the end of the workshop participants will recognize the value of cross-cultural and intergenerational perspectives in shaping shared memory and community archives. The learning outcomes are to:

• Describe the principles of co-curated community digital archives, including how to ethically document and contextualize objects, oral histories, and written transcripts in ways that center community voices and preserve accessibility.
• Practice facilitation techniques for guiding individuals through object-story sharing in group or workshop settings.
• Evaluate existing digital archive models and assess their applicability to their own community context.

Engagement: We welcome an audience interested in learning how to use material culture to preserve family and community memory, especially of armed conflict. We request Wifi to share data and presentation materials. Our goal is to empower participants to incorporate objects into their study of memory and to learn/share best practices for co-curation of digital family-community archives.

Relationship to Theme:

Audience

Audiences: Curators/Scientists/Historians 

Professional Level: All levels 

Scalability: We will facilitate discussions that offer participants the chance to imagine implementing a co-curated program within their own organization. We will guide participants through activities that connect individual and family object stories to broader social and historical narratives of modern armed conflict, help them to articulate how material culture contributes to collective memory and democratic understanding. By the end of the session participants will identify concrete steps for initiating or supporting object-based memory preservation work within their local communities and institutions.

Participants