Current Projects of the Network

Making Memories Matter

Making Memories Matter, running from 2004 to the present day, has involved artists from seven countries working with individual older people to create ‘Life Portraits’ or ‘Memory Boxes’ around their life experience. This project is supported by the European Commission, the Bosch Foundation, the Bridge House Trust and many smaller foundations in the participating countries.

Over one hundred boxes have been created, recycling ammunition cases (supplied by the army in each country) and giving them a peaceful and creative use. Each box has an accompanying text explaining the contents, putting the display in the wider context of the older participant’s life and giving the artist’s perspective. [Image right: Eileen and her memory box]

The resulting exhibition, which has been shown in galleries and museums in all seven partner countries, is remarkable as an exploration of Europe’s cultural heritage and it has been visited by thousands of people of all ages. It continues to tour across Europe and was featured in the Documenta international art exhibition in Kassel, Germany, in 2007.

A hard-back book of the project entitled 'Making Memories Matter' has been published by euregio-Verlag, Kassel, in a bilingual English/German edition in autumn 2005. Written by Pam Schweitzer and Angelika Trilling, it presents these European Memory Boxes in full colour plates, together with their accompanying texts and a commentary on the working process. Contact pam@pamschweitzer.com for details. [Image right: 'Making Memories Matter' bi-lingual publication]

Sites and Signs of Remembrance

Sites and Signs of Remembrance is a two-year project of the European Reminiscence Network with partners in Berlin, Dresden and Poznan (Poland). This is a life-long learning project supported by the European Union Socrates programme. It involved mapping and documenting older people’s responses to the changes they have seen, made and lived through in their different communities. Partners learnt through running their own inter-generational projects at a local level and through a series of international exchanges and visits. In year two of the project an on-line version was produced, bringing together the international project’s findings: www.sisie.eu.

Pam co-ordinated the project in the UK, in partnership with the Humanities Department of the University of Greenwich, the Greenwich Council for Racial Equality and a number of local ethnic minority community groups. [Image: Partners from Dresden. Berlin, Poznan and London at the Sites and Signs of Remembrance project's Berlin meeting January 2007]

In addition to the work undertaken on behalf of the Network, Pam frequently lectures and runs workshops overseas, especially in the fields of Reminiscence Theatre, intercultural work and dementia care.

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