An exhibition of some 30 black and white photos of the siege of Sarajevo contrasts the wartime atmosphere of the Bosnian capital with the face of the city today.
The exhibition of Bosnian photographer Dejan Vekic, called 'Like Sarajevo – 20 years later', in the gallery Java, shows a collection of photographs that documented everyday life in the city during the 1992-95 war in the country.
Most of the photos are unique, made in wartime conditions and most do not have a negative, the gallery curator explained during the opening of the exhibition on Friday night.
Vekic said that the photos and the accompanying video documentary, also shown at the exhibition, will later be part of a photography book he plans to publish- a 'story' he has yet to finish.
“It was a challenge for me to make a slightly different document of the war than all the other photographers did at the time,” Vekic told Balkan Insight.
The photographs, showing destroyed buildings and bullet-riddled walls, represent a stark contrast with the Sarajevo of today.
One Sarajevo resident who lived through the siege and attended the opening of the exhibit was Jovan Divjak, a former Bosnian Army general.
“What we saw here [at the exhibition] is something that does not exist anymore,” Divjak said: “There is no longer anything in the city that shows what really happened in Sarajevo during the war.”
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