Promemoria

Heritage Landscapes vol.11

Heritage Landscapes is the Promemoria Group newsletter created to observe the contemporary heritage landscape. Twice a month we share the most interesting news and the most innovative projects, investigating those archival stories that turn an object, a brand or an insight, into a legend.

Between architecture, design, fashion, food, technology. With no limit to our curiosity.

1. Main Theme

The DJ and The War Crimes
How to use archival documents to do in-depth investigative research? Rolling Stone has created a powerful and accurate immersive experience that allows you to enter the narrative of a war crime that took place in Bosnia in the 1990s. It called it: The DJ and the War Crimes.
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Thirty years after that 2 April 1992, The DJ and The War Crimes recounts what happened in the town of Bijeljina, one month after the start of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The American photographer Ron Haviv took a photo that went around the world. The photo shows a soldier (a member of the paramilitary unit Arkan's Tigers) about to hit a civilian in the face with a kick.

Collaborating with the Starling Lab for Data Integrity at Stanford and USC, Rolling Stone reconstructs the story of an event that was unprecedented since World War II; and builds an archive of documents, videos, photos, recordings and material unearthed from social media. The title comes from the trance music DJ identified as the protagonist in Ron Haviv's photo.
A precise and courageous way of traversing some of the most complex histories of the recent past, and making them available to all.

2. Avvistamenti. Traces of projects to keep an eye on

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a. 60 years of Nutella
Creams, giandujot, the classic jar, international success, a dedicated coin. In 1964 Nutella was born, and to celebrate, the brand dedicated a page summarising its own history. From the period just after the Second World War, when cocoa was hard to come by and Ferrero had a small but ingenious idea: to combine the little cocoa available with a sweet paste of hazelnuts and sugar. Until it became one of the most famous creams in the world.
b. Once Upon a Time, Palestine
Internazionale dedicates an article to the book Against erasure: a photographic memory of Palestine before the Nakba. The book, published in the UK by Haymarket books, edited by Spanish photographer Sandra Barrilaro and journalist Teresa Aranguren, bears witness to Palestinian society before 1948, when hundreds of thousands of people were forced to leave their homes and lands following the creation of the state of Israel. The photographs come from family archives collected by historian Johnny Mansour, and show a society without walls, made up of football teams, school trips, fishing, handicrafts.
c. In The Realm Of Perfection
"In the realm of perfection" is a 2018 film, directed by Julien Faraut, about one tennis player with a scientific eye: John McEnroe. Faraut worked in the archives of INSEP (Institut national du sport, de l'expertise et de la performance) and there he uncovered hours of recordings made by Gil de Kermadec, former director of the French tennis federation. The film moves through previously unseen footage depicting John McEnroe at Roland Garros in 1984, tracing a story of madness and genius, between impetus, anger and maniacal control.
Credits: Rolling Stone; Nutella; Internazionale, Haymarket Books; Modern Films

3. Memory Lane. Things that happen, and we want to remember

Archivissima - Fausto Paravidino
6 June sees the start of Archivissima 2024, the festival conceived by Promemoria Group where the wonders of archives are told from a contemporary perspective. To celebrate the start of this new edition, we have recovered one of the most beautiful performances of past years. Fausto Paravidino, playwright, actor and theatre director, read his tale of archival fiction Un aprile, contained in the seventh issue of our magazine ARCHIVIO, for Archivissima 2022.
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Newsletter

To keep up with our initiatives, discover case studies, innovations, projects, publications and more. For insights into how archives can become competitive tools that can transform the past into an extraordinary resource for the present.

Promemoria Group

Since 2011, Promemoria Group has been a reference in the world of heritage, historical archives and their valorization. We are in charge of recovering, preserving and organizing the history of more than 250 major companies and institutions, but also of telling and enhancing it in all possible ways. Our goal is to transform archival material into a strategic asset that can make a company's heritage a competitive tool.

At Promemoria Group we are humanists with a passion for science, and scientists with a humanistic spirit. Our work combines skills and visions, providing unique and authentic perspectives to archives and new value to history, objects, and knowledge.

We have a unique and patented method for researching, selecting, and organizing a company’s tangible and intangible heritage: Memories. A perfect synthesis of past and future that offers unprecedented strategies and tools capable of producing an archive of meaning, knowledge, content, and experience. The goal of Memories is to bring out a company’s heritage by codifying, classifying, preserving and enhancing knowledge, transforming it into economic and strategic assets.

ARCHIVIO, Archivissima and Legend are the ways in which Promemoria Group enhances heritage, showing the extraordinary content of archives through a contemporary lens. Whether through a magazine that changes editors every four issues, a national festival with a unique format in Europe, or a B2B event that investigates how a brand can cross time and become a legend.