DRPDNM implemented the living library event as part of our biggest event of the year – Festival Week of Cultures. It was one of the activities offered to people of the festival.
The event that took place in September was intended for the students of the local school – Gimnazija Novo mesto, but, since the schools were at the time operating online, we opened the event to other guests of the festival. The living library event had the title Do not judge a book by its cover, and had the intent to educate the people about the Slovenian past, as well as fight against stereotypes. As the event was a part of our Festival, we had also invited a few other books, who we have worked with in the past. 5 of the living books were part of the project TELL and were talking about their lives in the times of Yugoslavia, one of them also lived through the World War II. Although other books spoke about different topics,the visitors still noticed similarities and connections to the topic of project TELL’s books. One book talked about his story of coming to Slovenia as a refugee from Bosnia in the 90s, as the Yugoslavia was falling apart and Bosnia had the bloodiest war; while another asylum seeker has in recent years seeked refuge in Slovenia from the situation in Afghanistan. Although only one of them was a book from the TELL project, both stories showed similarities.From them we can learn, that human rights and fundamental freedoms are still endangered, and that things our countries went through some 30 years ago, are still happening in the present day in other parts of the world. The oldest of our books has lived in the same place through three different countries / regimes. Born in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia he was a child during WW2, grew up in Socialist Yugoslavia and now lives his later years in the independent Republic of Slovenia. Readers became completely immersed in his story and some even shed some tears. Another book spoke about her childhood in Bosnia and Herzegovina during Yugoslavian times and how her family has moved to Slovenia when she was still in elemtary school. Despite people of different cultures and nationalities were considered “brothers” in Yugoslavia, in reality she said Slovenians were xenophobic toward her in the beginning. During the time of project TELL, Slovenians have seen some media freedom restrictions. Due to this, we wanted to see what this was like in the time of our past regime. Another book was thus a journalist who has lived, finished her education and also worked as a journalist in SFRY, and still works as a journalist today in present-day-Slovenia. Slovenia is largely a rural country and throughout the past, the majority of its population had been farmers. This has only started changing in the 20th century, when more and more people were moving to cities and seeking jobs in factories. One of the books however, grew up in a farming family in Yugoslavia. She talked how different life was in the countryside compared to the city, the views people had, and the opportunities that might have been lost to them. The last book from the project TELL was a photographer from Novo mesto who has in the past followed many important events in the lives of people and eternalised them through camera lens. He has one of the latest photographs of Yugoslavian president Tito in his archive. Soon after our event, the Covid pandemic brought back even stricter restrictions. Due to this, we had to wait until springtime to continue with our project implementations. In April and May, we finally met again with our books and filmed the video interviews of their stories. We had to make a change however. Epidemic affected older people more and made them less open to visits and interactions. Due to this, we could not film the video interview with our oldest book, and instead invited another “book” to speak about her life in the video. Nina Š. Spoke about her childhood and youth in the later years of Yugoslavia and whether she was noticing the changes in the society before Yugoslavia became independent. She also spoke about the influence the media had on the lives of citizens since even at that time this was an interest of hers. The living library events have by now become a staple of our organisation. We do 1 or two events per year, where we invite people to read human books. Some of the books return time after time, and some are new on each event. We are looking forward to even more similar events, to share awareness, educate and fight stereotypes.
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