Activist Voices: Nomadic Monuments – Interview with Aida Šehović

Aida Šehović (b. 1977) is a Bosnian-American artist and the founder of ŠTO TE NEMA (“Why Are You Not Here?”). She began building this “nomadic monument” on 11 July 2006, the 11th anniversary of the 1995 Srebrenica Genocide. Since then, she has constructed the monument every year in a different city. To commemorate the 8,372 Bosnian Muslims who were systematically murdered in the genocide, Šehović began collecting fildžani – small, porcelain coffee cups without handles traditionally used to serve Bosnian coffee – with the goal of collecting one for each lost life. Each 11 July, upon an invitation from members of the Bosnian diaspora who were displaced by the war, Šehović and a team of volunteers construct the monument for one day in a public square of a new city. The local community and the passersby are invited to fill the small cups with Bosnian coffee and leave them, undrunk, in the public square to remember the Bosnians who are no longer able to share in this important cultural tradition and daily ritual with their families.