The WCM celebrated International Museum Day 2024! We built stories out of Lego bricks, filmed a video with teenagers, and for the first time, organized a literary event featuring Bosnian authors.
We marked International Museum Day at the War Childhood Museum this Saturday. In line with this year’s IMD theme “Museums for Education and Research,” and our core activities, we organized two creative and educational workshops for children and youth in our Museum.
The World We Imagine Together
The first workshop, titled “Building Stories out of Lego Bricks,” was inspired by a story of little boy Boris who found strength and shelter during the siege of Sarajevo by playing with Lego bricks.
The World We Imagined
Shelling meant spending time in either the basement, the hallway, the stairwell, or underneath the table in the dining room, which gave us a false sense of security. During shellings, I would be with my older sister, Ivana. We would play and sing together, be scared together, and share the good moments and the bad together. We had some old toy bricks and a few toy cars, as well as these Lego bricks and four game pieces from a “Ludo” board game.
In our imaginations, the blue bunny was dad, the red doe was mom, the yellow dog was sister and the green squirrel was brother. We would always share the toy bricks and cars so that everyone could build a house for their piece. Besides owning a house and a car, the pieces would also drive these cars and visit each other.
I remember that one of the toy cars was a convertible. Brother would always drive the convertible, visiting the family home together with his sister. They would drive around town and go anywhere and everywhere they wanted. Within that game, we had a world of our own, a beautiful world. We called the game “Figurines”.
After introducing participants to Boris’s story and showing them several exhibits from our permanent collection, adapted to their age group, the boys and girls aged 8 to 10 also built small worlds of their dreams using Lego bricks.
A Guided Tour and a Video Shooting
Our second creative workshop, “Young Curators Guide You Through the Museum,” was designed for teenagers aged 13 to 16. The workshop allowed them to step into the role of young curators at the WCM for a day. Participants explored the exhibition and engaged with the museum space to decide what aspects are most important and interesting for youths of their age. Guided by their own impressions and collaborating with our graphic designer, Dino Aganovic, they also filmed a short video inviting their peers to visit the WCM. In the next few days, we will publish the video on our social media platforms and offer free admission to the first 30 teenagers who contact us.
A Literary Event Dedicated to Peace
For the first time, we hosted a literary event “Peace in Literature”. We talked with Bosnian writers – Almir Imsirevic, Lamija Begagic, and Aida Secic Nezirevic – about the importance and representation of peace themes in contemporary Bosnian and regional literature. The program was designed in collaboration with the forumZFD office in Serbia. Last year the organization published the anthology “The Moment When Peace Began for Me,” including stories by Imsirevic and Secic Nezirevic. After the event, which lasted almost two hours of reading and discussion, all attendees received a copy of the mentioned book.
As a part of marking International Museum Day, we also provided free admission to all visitors during the weekend.
