Ron Haviv: Imaging War
BALKAN DISKURS (21/3/2016) Ron Haviv has spent almost 25 years documenting conflicts around the world, from the wars in Bosnia and Rwanda to the famine in Somalia. He spent 10 years photographing the Balkan wars, taking some of the most famous photographs of the Bosnian war. We met in Sarajevo, where an exhibition of his […]
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Flotel Europa: Memories of a Bosnian Refugee in Denmark
BALKAN DISKURS (19/11/2015) In 1992, Vladimir Tomić was twelve years old when the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina started. He fled Sarajevo with his mother and older brother, and sought asylum in Denmark. With refugee camps completely full, the Danish Red Cross began housing refugees on an enormous ship called Flotel Europa, moored in the port of Copenhagen. […]
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Art Aevi in Sarajevo: A Museum for Peace
BALKAN DISKURS (23/12/2015) “If you are looking for hell, ask the artist where it is. If you don’t find the artist, then you are already in hell,” wrote Avigdoor Pawsner in 1793. Two hundred years later, the Bosnian artist Dean J. Toumin quoted Pawsner during the war in Sarajevo. Pawsner’s words now welcome visitors to […]
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Silence and Denial in Višegrad
BALKAN DISKURS (25/1/2016) On 14 June 1992, 70 Muslim civilians were taken by a group of armed Serbs to a house on Pionirska Street in the eastern Bosnian town of Višegrad. They were locked in the basement, where the carpet beneath their feet was set ablaze. At least 59 people were burned to death. A […]
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Remembering Srebrenica at the Sarajevo Film Festival
GLOBAL VOICES (9/9/2015) Considered the worst massacre in Europe since World War II, 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed by Bosnian Serb troops at Srebrenica in 1995. A new film focusing on survivors of the Srebrenica genocide premiered at the 21st Sarajevo Film Festival on August 17 On August 17, Bosnian director Samir Mehanović presented his documentary […]
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The Bridges of Bosnia-Herzegovina
BALKAN DISKURS (13/1/2016) Bosnia is a country of bridges: Sarajevo is famous for its 13 bridges, among them the well-known Latin Bridge where Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, an event that triggered the First World War. The Mostar Bridge is on the cover of almost every Bosnian travel guide, and the photos of its destruction […]
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