Building on the experience and methodological legacy of NeDiPa: Negotiating Difficult Pasts, the ReActMem project continues the trajectory of developing participatory, ethical and practice-oriented approaches to difficult heritage established within the Difficult Heritage Remembrance Framework (DHRF). NeDiPa created a living resource for memory activists, heritage professionals, educators and public authorities, combining tools, case studies and guidelines for work with difficult Jewish heritage in Poland and Central East Europe.
This line of work was further developed through MultiMemo, which expanded the focus from difficult heritage sites to multidirectional and multi-stakeholder memory practices. The project was drawing on the concept of multidirectional memory, understood as a way of thinking about different histories of violence not as competing for public attention, but as capable of entering into dialogue with one another. MultiMemo proposed a cross-cutting understanding of memory: one that treats remembrance not only as a way of preserving the past, but also as a tool for responding to contemporary social challenges, including human rights violations, armed conflicts, violence, social exclusion and the migration crisis. ReActMem grows out of this continuity: from NeDiPa’s practical framework, through MultiMemo’s broader reflection on plural memory, toward a more responsive model of European remembrance that connects research, civic engagement, artistic intervention and community-based action.
The ReActMem approach was strongly influenced by the work of the Israeli thinker Ariella Azoulay and the Polish historian Ewa Domańska, particularly their concepts of, respectively, “potential history” and “rescue history.” Both concepts emphasize the need to recover forgotten, untold, silenced or marginalized stories that exist beyond master narratives and dominant discourses. The emphasis is placed on vulnerable groups’ experiences, as well as heritage and places connected to them. Through contemporary acts of care, which are central to both approaches, the past is not only remembered and critically examined but also mobilized to shape the future.