Hella Wiedmer-Newman studied Art History and Human Geography (BA) at the University of Toronto and History of Art (MA) at University College London. In 2017 she interned at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, working in cultural mediation. From 2021 to 2022 she was a research assistant at Kuma International Center for Visual Arts from Post-Conflict Societies in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Her interests are in the areas of memory and museum studies, (visual) cultural studies, (geo)politics and critical theory. She has been a member of the eikones Graduate School since 2022.

Protectorate Memory: Visual Politics in (Post-)Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina 

My dissertation analyses the idiosyncratic and multifarious artistic and visual memory culture produced within the de-facto UN protectorate of BiH. Through a number of case studies across various genres and media, I term “memory displays” – such as monuments, participatory performances and group exhibitions – and financed or authored by a heterogenous mixture of actors – state and local officials, international donors, NGOs and foundations, grassroots crowdsourcing – my research aims to shift the focus from the “postconflict” to the “protectorate” as an ideological project. As such, I include discourse analysis about the role of art in reconciliation and transitional justice processes, as well as oral histories from culture workers, and critical visual analyses of the case studies. My hope is that my investigation could serve as a model for the broader study of the visual politics produced through this curious form of paternalist governance, which grew out of Cold War interventionism and the establishment of the UNHCR, but to many scholars, artists and activists dangerously appropriates neocolonial mechanisms.