The ARchipelago is a site-specific archival platform for public space in the post-Yugoslav context that brings together war and post-war document collections in an AR app along with an online archive.
It has been developed based on the Augmented Archive technology, in cooperation with Clarissa Thieme and Armina Pilav and a wide range of institutional partners from all over Ex-Yugoslavia.
The ARchipelago app and online archive launches are set for 2024 in Sarajevo, Prizren, Mostar, and Belgrade.
Thirty years after the wars that led to and followed the breakup of Yugoslavia, many dedicated archival initiatives offer a critical, multi-perspective view of the region’s recent history. By transforming a smartphone into an easily accessible media archaeological device free from local political restrictions, the ARchipelago combines diverse archival voices. It utilizes GPS-tagged audio-visual testimonies, making them accessible through an augmented reality (AR) app that enables users to interact with and explore the locations these documents are associated with. The ARchipelago explores the technology of AR as a hands-on participatory archival practice within public space that offers intersections of contested and conflicting narratives in four site-specific urban case studies across the post-Yugoslav space. Together, they create a multidirectional picture of history in which there is collectively more to discover and share.