Family memory practices in contemporary Russia: from personal activities to institutional projects and back again

Application summary

The project examines family memory in contemporary Russian society. The Russian government prefers to use memory as a source for the narrative of the heroic Russian past. At the same time, family memories might work as a source of different narratives, including contradictory modes, such as patience, sorrow, and anger. I am going to explore what people are doing in order to feel a connection with their familial past. For that I am going to study two cases: several creative workshops happened in public institutions and individual ways of remembering familial past practised by people in their 30s. I am going to focus on how both cases’ participants are talking about their family memories, what they do when they remember and how these practices are organised as an interaction between participants' bodies and materials they use such as fabric, threads, photographs etc. I suggest that attention to materiality might give me a key to understanding how people actually feel connection with their familial story.