Artification of Memory: “Trench Art” and Remembering Serbian Soldiers from the Great War

Abstract

Objects made from war matériel , munition shells and arms whose primary military function is transformed by the act of artification emerged as a phenomenon in European visual culture during and after WW1. These ob- jects, belonging to the category of Trench Art, are visual cultural testimonies of the Great War. The character of these objects, hybrid in many ways, positions them between decorative and folk art. Serving a distinctly memorial or com-memorative function, these objects are intertwined with the context of war, and through different strategies of artification they become new objects of second-ary use holding great value as items and documents of visual culture. In Ser-bia, numerous museums and private collections hold objects of remembrance of WW1, but these remain largely understudied and, in many cases, have not been analyzed methodologically. Trench Art objects have an important place in sacral public spaces as military markers connected with memories of fallen soldiers. With the intention of systematizing the above-mentioned objects of war visual culture, we will interpret them in a wider European context, pointing to the process of their transformation from primary war matériel to becoming a bearer of new, complex meanings through artistic intervention. A great number of material objects of Trench Art belong to the study of the history of art and visual culture. Attesting to the materiality of the period, the character of these objects varies greatly and is defined by the personal relationships to the Great War of the Serbian soldiers and civilians who crafted them. Additionally, the objects hold a public symbolic function in expressing certain aspects of social ideology in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.