Trauma-Informed Archiving: Lessons from the War Childhood Museum

How are archives developed for the Bosnian War of 1992-1995 when memories are contested, diverge, or remain politically charged? What is the responsibility of the archive when working with survivors’ testimony and objects? How has the War Childhood Museum approached archiving the war differently from other institutions? 

Join us online for a presentation by Dr. Ajnura Akbaš (War Childhood Museum) and discussion moderated by Dr. Matt Huculak (University of Victoria) and MA candidate Olivia Kozlovic (University of Victoria) as they discuss community-engaged approaches to documenting and archiving the 1992-1995 Bosnian War. 

Speaker Bios 

Dr. Ajnura Akbaš is a Research Coordinator at the War Childhood Museum, where she leads research and documentation projects focused on the lived experiences of individuals whose childhoods are affected by armed conflict. She is also a PhD graduate from the London School of Economics and Political Science, specialising in Gender studies. Her research examines women’s military service during the Bosnian war, with a focus on gender, militarisation, and post-war memory. Ajnura’s work is grounded in creative, trauma-sensitive and survivor-centred methodologies, including collage-making, body mapping, and collaborative documentary practices. She also supports the SCVN Yugoslav Wars Research Cluster as community liaison and primary contact with the War Childhood Museum, as well as developing an Archiving Toolkit specific to the Bosnian War.

Dr. Matt Huculak is Director of the Kula: Library Futures Academy at the University of Victoria Libraries. A Library Journal “Mover and Shaker,” he was recognized for his work as a digital scholarship innovator during his tenure as Head of Advanced Research Services at UVic Libraries, where he led initiatives in digital asset management, grant-supported scholarship, and digital exhibitions connecting faculty, students, and communities. His research and leadership focus on transdisciplinary knowledge creation, positioning libraries as incubators for emerging technologies and collaborative inquiry across disciplines. He holds a PhD in English from the University of Tulsa and an MLIS from San Jose State University, with graduate study at McGill University and UC Davis — a formation that reflects his grounding in both the humanities and information science. He also serves as Data Director for the Survivor-Centred Visual Narratives (SCVN) project, overseeing the development of the project’s archival infrastructure.

Olivia Kozlovic is an MA student in the Holocaust Studies stream in the University of Victoria’s Germanic and Slavic Studies department. Her research examines the entangled memories of the Holocaust and the Yugoslav Wars in the Balkans, focusing on sites of memory as physical manifestations of this entangled memory in Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia. Her aim is to understand how the memories of these two events impact one another in the public memory landscape of the Yugoslav successor states. She is supporting the SCVN project as a research assistant archiving the artistic materials, beginning with the Holocaust and Yugoslav Wars Research Clusters.

Wednesday March 22nd, 2026
10:00am 

Registration Required. 

Register Here

Disabled activists are experts in solidarity and using humour to challenge ableism. The People’s Alliance for Disabled Albertans was created by disabled people to stand up to Alberta government cuts. In this talk, Dr. Janz will speak about her experience helping to create PADA as an example of disability leadership that subverts injustice and fights for a better world for all.

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For many disabled people in general, and disability rights advocates in particular, working cooperatively and building alliances are both survival skills and traits for which they are known. Another trait often found to be common among disabled people in general and disability rights advocates in particular is  a sardonic sense of humor which often enables us to flip ableism—even in its most deadly form—on its head, in order to expose its true absurdity. It was out of both these traits that the People’s Alliance for Disabled Albertans  (PADA) was born

In this talk, Dr. Janz will reflect on her recent experience of helping give birth to the People’s Alliance for Disabled Albertans. The acronym PADA is a rather ingenious inversion and subversion of the acronym for the new Alberta Disability Assistance Program (ADAP), the Government of Alberta’s new workfare program, which is scheduled to begin in July 2026. From its initial inception, PADA was conceived of as a disability-led force, whose purpose it is to oppose the implementation of ADAP through a variety of means. Dr. Janz’s ultimate aim in relating some of the experiences that she has had with PADA thus far is to illustrate how important it is for disabled people to develop the skills of alliance-building and community-building in order to survive in a society that is becoming increasingly utilitarian and ableist. 

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Heidi Janz, Ph.D. (she/her) is a long-time disability rights advocate, academic, filmmaker and playwright. Currently, Heidi is a Core Faculty Member and Associate Adjunct Professor with the John Dossetor Health Ethics Centre at the University of Alberta. Her primary area of specialization is Disability Ethics. Much of her research and teaching in recent years has focused on ableism in general and medical ableism in particular. She has written and co-written articles on Disability Ethics and medical ableism for numerous journals, including The Lancet, the Canadian Medical Association Journal, The Conversation (Canada), the Canadian Journal of Disability Studies, and the Canadian Journal of Bioethics. Through her research, writing, and teaching on Disability Ethics and ableism, she seeks to educate students, academics, and practitioners in fields as diverse as Medicine, Health Sciences, Social Sciences, and the Humanities and Fine Arts, about the prevalence of ableism and the, often lethal, harms that ableism causes to disabled people. 

Lunch and ASL interpretation provided. No registration required. 

Tuesday April 7, 2026
1:00-2:00PM
Carnegie Learning Centre, 3rd Floor
401 Main St., V6A 2T7