Home as Museum: Memory, Identity and Inclusion at Kuća Bakić

Abstract

In the context of post-industrial urban regeneration and heritage reinterpretation, the project Kuća Bakić in Bjelovar transforms the childhood house of the sculptor Vojin Bakić into a contemporary “museum of home”. Rooted in personal narratives, architectural rupture and collective memory, the initiative re-imagines the museum as an inclusive space of dialogue, migration, domestic loss and identity-reconstruction. Utilizing participatory design, oral histories and narrative installations, the project foregrounds voices of former residents, displaced families and local community members. By enabling “home” as a shared sphere of representation, the exhibition challenges conventional museal boundaries and fosters inclusive practices—where the everyday, the lost and the marginal become visible. This paper presents the theoretical framework (narrative museology, memory studies, participatory museum), key methodological choices and early results in terms of audience engagement and spatial mediation. The findings aim to contribute to the inclusive museum discourse by demonstrating how a “micro-museum” of the domestic can become a vehicle for community empowerment, intergenerational memory transfer and localized cultural justice.

Presenters

Marijana Dragičević
Director, Bjelovar City Museum, Bjelovarsko-bilogorska županija, Croatia

Details

Presentation Type

Innovation Showcase

Theme

2026 Special Focus—The Future of Museum Narratives

KEYWORDS

INCLUSIVE MUSEUM, PARTICIPATORY MUSEOLOGY, MEMORY STUDIES, COMMUNITY HERITAGE, NARRATIVE MUSEOLOGY