Beyond remembrance: commemorating the Srebrenica genocide through coffee rituals

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, coffee drinking is a deeply rooted social ritual representing hospitality, quality time and togetherness. This ritual may assume a functional dimension when adapted to the complex post-traumatic socio-political context. Artistic initiatives such as the nomadic monument ŠTO TE NEMA (‘Why aren’t you here?’), the documentary drama ‘My Thousand Year Old Land’, and the commemorative performance ‘8372’ (including its subsequent versions) re-semanticise the coffee ritual to convey the sense of human loss and address the Srebrenica genocide (1995), which resulted in the killing of more than 8,000 Bosniak men. Bosnian coffee traditions are inherently interactive; a feature artists purposefully integrate to create a space of engagement for wider audiences. In these art initiatives, the coffee ritual functions as a mnemonic strategy for reimagining the very idea of remembrance and contributing to the shift in monumentalisation. Contemporary artists develop inclusive and community-driven forms to remember past events and create broad access to them, which traditional monuments have failed to achieve. In the Bosnian case, artists challenge rigid, hegemonic, and homogenising narratives, breaking away from political elite influence. This research aligns with third-wave memory studies, which emphasise agency and memory-making as contested processes, integrating more inclusive and future-oriented elements that can bring about positive social changes in transnational memory politics rather than solely concentrating on the traumatic past. Moreover, it extends Rigney’s (2018) memory-activism nexus by exploring art’s role in fostering social transformation. I argue that specific art forms foster empathy in divided societies (and beyond) by addressing human loss and providing access to otherwise restricted spaces and memories. Finally, the proposed methodological framework aims to support the examination of alternative commemorative art and memory artivist practices that emerge in contexts marked by violence, conflict, and international crimes, including genocide.