A table with a view led the workshop “Open up your box” hosted by the War Childhood Museum (WCM) in Sarajevo.

To elaborate this workshop, the WCM gave me access to 25 children’s testimonials from the archive, describing a particular aspect of their life during the war. The testimonials have a recurrent feature: There is an object or a space that relates to a story. This story connects with a special person, place or city. Therefore the object becomes the holder of a story and transcends its mere function of toy, garment, jewellery, etc.

The collection of the WCM is, in part, the result of the donations of personal objects by the adults/children that underwent the war. The important fact is that the adult/child accepts to donate this important object that means so much to him. This generous action is probably an unconscious will, a longing, to open up to a new beginning.

The workshop entitled “Open up your box” is inspired by the personal object, the story behind it and the sharing.

This workshop seeks to help children establish relationships between the self, the habitat and the others/the city and to express why an object becomes important beyond its materialistic value.

The relationship with the self is done through a belonging (object): what is mine and the meaning I attach to it. There is a play around the word: belonging, as it refers simultaneously to a “possession” but also to “a close or intimate relationship”.

The relationship with the other is done through sharing. In that way, we are able to connect to each other through feelings. And therefore belong to a place, a family, community etc.

Space is paramount in making this possible. There is a diversity of spaces: the space of a paper to write, draw or compose a partition, but also built space. Built space ranges from the private house to public shared spaces. Even in war, parks and streets were vital to the inhabitants.

During the workshop, each child was asked to bring along a “figurine” that is important to him. A box was given to each child to adapt to his figurine as its private habitat. Then a public park is introduced; to share between all the participants, around which the boxes/houses will settle. This final step triggered a conversation between the participants and proposals to come up with a settlement design for all the houses. Soon, a “design consensus” was reached through dialog that allowed the different figurines to cohabit and share the public space of the park.