Symposium Participatory Memory, Collective Imagination: Connecting Institutions and Communities

The symposium contributes to ongoing debates on gender, race, and class within cultural imaginations of the past. It does so by examining the participation of co-researchers from cultural institutions and civil society activism, including those from marginalised communities.

In recent years, participatory approaches have gained increasing prominence, fostering forms of knowledge production that are co-constructed within broader social contexts rather than being defined solely within (academically) institutionalised research. However, studies of cultural memory often still fall short of fully integrating participatory methods that ensure the active involvement of societal actors in shaping project design, research questions, and analysis.

The symposium seeks to advance participatory memory studies that approach cultural memory in socially engaged and inclusive ways. It addresses the general challenges and opportunities of participatory methods in transdisciplinary research, maps memory researchers’ experiences with these approaches, and aims to initiate collaborations with co-researchers during the event. 

Sixteen speakers will discuss the topics “Opportunities and Challenges,” “Sharing Experiences,” “Places of Remembrance,” and “Alternative Practices” across four panels.
 

Panels
Chances & Challenges | Exploring Experiences | Spaces of Memory | Alternative Practices

Language
English

Date
2 July 2026

Venue
TH Köln, Faculty of Cultural Sciences. Ubierring 40, 50678 Cologne, room 11

Organisation
Alexander van Wickeren & Carolin Höfler

Registration
Attendance at the symposium is free of charge. To attend, please register here: Email: Alexander van Wickeren

Funded by
PLan_CV & Köln International School in Design of TH Köln 

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PROGRAMME

Thu, 2 July 2026

09:00–09:15 Welcome & Introduction
Carolin Höfler & Alexander van Wickeren

I. Chances & Challenges

09:15–10:15 Jonathan Ngeh, University of Cologne
Doing Research With, Not On: Ethics of Knowledge Co-Production (Keynote lecture)

10:15–10:30 Coffee break

II. Exploring Experiences

10:30–11:00 Red Chidgey, King’s College London
Activist Collaboration: Exploring Methods for Equitable Memory Work

11:00–11:30 Felix Fuhg, eCommemoration Körber-Stiftung
The Past as a Participatory Medium: Rethinking Memory Culture in the Post-Digital Age

11:30–12:00 Sandra Vacca, ICOM International Committee for Collecting
Co-Making Memory? Participatory Research and the Postmigrant Museum

12:00–13:00 Lunch break

III. Spaces of Memory 

Co-Research with Bebero Lehmann, DOMiD – Documentation Centre and Museum of Migration in Germany 

13:00–13:20 Daniel Lohmann, TH Köln
Whose Cultural Heritage? The Power Station on the Zanders Site in Bergisch Gladbach as a Reflection of Architecture, Industrial History and Migration

13:20–13:40 Yvonne Lober & Carolin Höfler, TH Köln
Boundaryma(r)king: Mediating (Im)material Memory Along the Inter-Entity Boundary Line, Bosnia and Herzegovina

13:40–14:10 Comment and discussion

14:10–14:25 Coffee break

IV. Alternative Practices

Co-Research with Fabiola Arellano Cruz, Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum Köln 

14:25–14:45 Simon Meienberg, TH Köln; Sandra Kurfürst, University of Cologne; Sevi Bayraktar, Cologne University of Music and Dance & Wan Issa, Kurdish cultural researcher
Moving Memories: Embodied Acts of Collective Remembering through Dance and Theater

14:45–15:05 Marc Pfaff, Berlin University of the Arts/Technical University Berlin & Jonny-Bix Bongers, curator and researcher, Berlin
Imagining Alternative Archives

15:05–15:35 Comment and discussion

15:35–16:15 Final Discussion
with Wrap-Up by Glenda Obermuller, Theodor Wonja Michael Bibliothek, and Simon Meienberg, TH Köln

Copyright Pictures:  Sevi Bayraktar, Jonny-Bix Bongers, Fabiola Arellano Cruz, Felix Fuhg/Anna Norpoth/Moses Omeogo, Red Chidgey, Wan Issa, Sandra Kurfürst/Philipp Lehmann, Bebero Lehmann, Yvonne Lober, Daniel Lohmann, Simon Meienberg, Jonathan Ngeh, Marc Pfaff, Sandra Vacca, Alexander van Wickeren