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This panel programme accompanies the production of Flowers of Srebrenica – a reimagining of Aidan Hehir's illustrated novel – featuring artists from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Rwanda, Ireland and Ukraine. Co-produced by SARTR Sarajevo and LegalAliens Theatre London as part of Perform Europe, the production marks 30 years since the Srebrenica genocide and had its opening in Sarajevo in July 2025.

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Panel discussions are taking place in London, Oslo and Pisa over the autumn of 2025 offering audiences the opportunity to learn, share and discuss issues raised by the production. Debates are led by interventions from international scholars and thinkers from a variety of fields.

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As a point of departure, the panels are guided by Joanne Rosenthal’s 10 principles for exhibiting absence and loss, set out in her essay for Staging Difficult Pasts (2023). These strategies grapple with the curatorial and ethical difficulties of staging, enacting, viewing and commemorating traumatic pasts via artistic-cultural productions. In Flowers of Srebrenica, Aidan comes to realise that ‘all around, there are thousands, both living and dead: trapped’. With multiple wars around us at present, can theatre dislodge stiffened lines of demarcation and cultivate transformation beyond commemoration?

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The discussions follow an open and collaborative format, bringing together a diversity of voices. Each event is a 'glocal encounter' that draws on the local/ regional experiences and social cultural histories, while also thinking through global connectedness and resonances elsewhere – connecting a diversity of knowledge and experiences across different geographies.

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Each panel debate focuses on separate, but interlinked topics and a set of related questions, inviting collective reflections on memory, witnessing and legacy.

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THEATRE AS SITE OF/FOR MEMORY

Jacksons Lane Theatre, London, 16 October 2025

 

Leading questions: can absence be performed? to what extent can theatre act as site of/for memory? and how can theatre facilitate individual and collective healing?

 

Here to discuss:

Zrinka Bralo, Migrant Justice Activist and Journalist, Migrants Organise UK

Clare Finburgh Delijani, Professor of Theatre & Performance, Goldsmith University of London

Aidan Hehir, Author and Professor of International Relations, University of Westminster

Kim Sadique, Associate Professor in Genocide Prevention and Education, De Monfort University, Leicester

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VICTIMS, WITNESSES, VIOLENCE: WHOSE MEMORIES DESERVE TO BE TOLD?

Rommen Scene, Oslo, 23 October 2025

 

Leading questions: what narratives and whose memories are being told? what are the ethics of telling and retelling? and how can legacies of war shape our present?

 

Here to discuss:

Aidan Hehir, Author and Professor of International Relations, University of Westminster

Cindy Horst, Research Professor in Migration & Refugee Studies, Peace Research Institute Oslo

Merete Røstad, Associate Professor in Art & Public Space, Oslo National Academy of the Arts

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MIGRATING EXPERIENCES: PERFORMING WHAT CONNECTS US?

Binario Vivo, Teatro Nuovo, Pisa 15 November 2025

 

Leading questions: what have we learnt? how can artistic practices build solidarity across cultures and communities? and how can sharing experiences lead to new social visions?

 

Here to discuss:

Pierluigi Musarò, Professor of Sociology, University of Bologna

Chiara Nencioni, Research Fellow in Public History, University of Pisa

Sara Francesca Soncini, Associate Professor of English Literature, University of Pisa

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