Sarajevo Self-portrait: The View from Inside By Leslie Fratkin Images and words by nine photographers from the former Yugoslavia: Kemal Hadˇ zi c´ , Milomir Kovaˇ cevi c, ´ Danilo Krstanovi c´ , Nermin Muhic, ´ Mladen Pikuli c´ , ˇ agolj, ˇ ˇ iˇ Nihad Puˇ sija, Damir S Sahin S si c´ , and Dejan Veki´c
Sarajevo Self-portrait: The View from Inside presents the work and words of nine photographers from the former Yugoslavia. Each of these courageous photographers continued making pictures throughout the course of the war in Bosnia and the siege of Sarajevo, photographing the ruins and documenting the loss of their neighborhoods and homes, families and friends. Sarajevo Self-portrait offers an authentic view of a country at war in a completely new way—through the eyes of those actually living inside it. Although the world has been inundated with images of the war in Bosnia since its beginning, almost all of those pictures were taken by outsiders: foreigners, journalists, and war tourists, all crossing borders with an ease not afforded those who call Bosnia home. These images, made in spite of—and often as a result of—the harsh living conditions endured by the photographers, are powerful testimony to the real situation of the war. Made with what little film they had, in ruined darkrooms without electricity or running water, their photographs are not only hard proof of the destruction and the suffering of this once-beautiful country. They are a visual poetry too, an epic tale told with pictures both stunning and tragic. The images made by these nine photographers range from the journalistic to the conceptual. One photographer documented his besieged city using two cameras; with one he made pictures for the War Crimes Commission to be used as evidence in future war crimes trials. With the other he made much more personal images, in an attempt to make sense of the suffering and the loss happening around him. Another photographer was offered a job taking photos for an international news agency in the Spring of 1992, when the siege of Sarajevo first began. But within one month, haunted by the faces of the dead he was being paid to photograph, he fled his city, eventually ending up in Berlin. He has devoted himself to documenting the plight of the thousands of Bosnian refugees and gypsies living in temporary camps and settlements across Germany ever since. In their interviews and images, each of the photographers speak to the absurdity and anguish of their circumstances, touching on vital questions: How does the artistic impulse survive in the midst of the chaos and destruction of war? How does one avoid contributing to the mythologies of war and violence? How do the images created by the media machines of the "outside" world compare to those taken by photographers trapped in the daily struggle to survive and to defend their families and friends? A moving introduction by National Public Radio correspondent Tom Gjelten as well as a chronology of the last ten years in the history of Sarajevo are also included. Leslie Fratkin, the photographer who initiated the Sarajevo Self-portrait project, provides an essay describing her introduction to and involvement with this unique photographic community. For a country so brutally torn apart by racial conflict and hate, and for the rest of the world which largely ignored Bosnia’s cries for help, Sarajevo Self-portrait is much more than just a collection of photographs; it is a powerful and much-needed opportunity to cut straight through media’s rhetoric, uncovering the hard truths of war.