DOI: 10.18848/1835-2014/cgp/a496 ISSN: 1835-2022

Home as Museum

Marijana Dragičević
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<p>This article examines Kuća Bakić—Museum of Homes, a project of the Bjelovar City Museum, as a practice-led case study in inclusive museology. Situated in the childhood home of sculptor Vojin Bakić in Bjelovar, Croatia, the project departs from the conventional biographical house museum and reconceives domestic space as a shared interpretive resource. This article introduces memotopia, a concept developed within the project to describe the affective intersection of personal memory, collective history, and the symbolic imaginary of home. Methodologically, the article combines reflective curatorial analysis, project documentation, preliminary community contributions, and early interpretive responses. Rather than reconstructing an authoritative historical interior, Kuća Bakić works through absence, fragmentation, oral testimony, community-contributed narratives, and ordinary objects. Through the example of a donated shirt belonging to a Croatian war veteran detained in the Sremska Mitrovica camp, the article demonstrates how domestic heritage can also address the violent deformation of home. It argues that this approach shifts the museum from a site of representation toward a site of recognition, encounter, and shared authorship. In post-socialist contexts marked by migration, rupture, and contested belonging, small-scale domestic heritage can operate as a powerful civic medium. Kuća Bakić therefore offers a model for museums seeking to foster localized cultural justice and more inclusive forms of belonging within and beyond the Croatian context.</p>

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