Heritage Landscapes vol.11

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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

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.