In a time when collective memory and remembrance in institutional settings, including museums and other historically significant mediation sites, face threats from political influence and historical relativism, the arts increasingly gain relevance as tools for advancing historical accuracy and resistance.

This research project examines the contested nature of material mnemonic practices in public space in Austria. By investigating the mediation of collective remembrance through the lens of socio-materiality, with particular empirical focus on art competitions as commemorative outlets, the project demonstrates how collective memory is co-produced through artistic knowledge practices, historical narratives, material choices and regulations, and socio-political power dynamics. It reveals how different stakeholders' valuations shape both narratives and material manifestations of collective memory, and how theoretical and artistic engagement can access topics and realities considered inaccessible to disciplines relying on straightforward analysis. Artistic engagement with remembrance, particularly when combined with historical accuracy and clarity, can play a distinctive political role that is difficult for opponents to directly counter. In doing so, artistic knowledge practices, like psychological concepts often regarded as neutral or apolitical, become entangled with broader social and political dynamics, advancing theoretical inquiry in an increasingly contested environment of collective memory mediation. When other arteries of critical inquiry are constrained, the arts can continue creating alternative narratives and circumventing existing power structures and dynamics.