MONUMENT
2020 - present
Cups of Memory is a collaboration between architect Arna Mačkić (Studio L A) and artist Aida Šehović (ŠTO TE NEMA), both survivors of the Bosnian War (1992–1995). Emerging from the foundation of the ŠTO TE NEMA monument, the project extends its methods—ritual, participation, and care—into an ongoing search for a permanent form.
Centering the voices of survivors, descendants, and witnesses, and drawing on rituals central to the monument—carrying, coffee-making, holding, inheriting, listening, pouring, praying, storing, unpacking, washing—Cups of Memory gathers lived experience into a site of encounter, reflection, and healing.
carrying
listening
coffee making
pouring
holding
washing
inheriting
praying
storing
un:packing
2006 - 2020
What began as a one-time public performance by Bosnian-American artist Aida Šehović grew into a participatory monument to the Srebrenica genocide, renewed each year on 11 July in public squares around the world. From its inception in 2006 in Sarajevo to its final iteration in 2020 at the Srebrenica Memorial Center, ŠTO TE NEMA gathered thousands in collective mourning and care. Built from fildžani collected for each of the 8,372 genocide victims, the monument took shape cup by cup as volunteers, families, and diaspora communities assembled the work by pouring Bosnian coffee that remained undrunk—an annual ritual of remembrance and resistance to the normalization of mass atrocities.
Between 2006 and 2020, the ŠTO TE NEMA monument was presented in 15 cities: Sarajevo (2006), New York (2007), Tuzla (2008), The Hague (2009), Stockholm (2010), Burlington (2011), Istanbul (2012), New York (2013), Toronto (2014), Geneva (2015), Boston (2016), Chicago (2017), Zurich (2018), Venice (2019), and Srebrenica (2020).