Personal and Collective Memory Boards as an Instrument for Enhancing Community Belonging and Self-Esteem from Tribal Societies to Contemporary Ones

This article addresses the concept of memory boards as a community working tool. Collective and personal memory boards served several tribal cultures as a visual exhibit of a tribe’s story or a totem group alongside every member’s unique contribution. They are powerful tools to strengthen community belonging and sense of their members’ self-esteem. Two tribal art objects are represented as examples of efficient memory holders for their community members: Indigenous Australian Churinga in Australia and the Lukasa memory boards of the African Luba tribe. An intervention program based on the Hero-Heroine’s Journey model, focusing on the interface between myths, personal stories, and art, took place from 2023 to 2024 among 40 participants from three third-age clubs in a central city in Israel. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with some program participants emphasizing the examined parameters. Among artistic tools, collage technique and metaphorical collage research tools were used to enable nonverbal expression among participants. This article presents an experiment where artistic tribal practices using memory artifacts inspired an efficient tool that can be used nowadays in community art projects to enhance a sense of belonging and a sense of self-esteem. It demonstrates how a modern "memory board" created using the metaphorical collage tool refers to and deepens interview data. An analysis of the metaphorical collages and interviews revealed that collages shed light on themes found in the interview. The meaning of the results and the main conclusions arising from this article are: (a) using tribal techniques, such as memory boards, as part of artistic tools and products, can change people’s sense of belonging and self-esteem and (b) we can contribute to contemporary community members’ understanding of these two parameters by continuing research about using these practical tools.