BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA: Streetart Sarajevo - Marijin Dvor - Put Života 2C - Train Station - 30 Years Srebrenica WARM Photo Exhibition - DAMIR ŠAGOLJ

Srebrenica – 30 Godina / 30 Years – Photo Exhibition

On the occasion of commemorating the 30th anniversary of the genocide in Srebrenica, the WARM Foundation and the University of Sarajevo are organizing an exhibition of photographs by award-winning Bosnian photographer DAMIR ŠAGOLJ, which were shown simultaneously in two locations: at the gallery of the Academy of Fine Arts and at the Railway Station in Sarajevo, from 30th June to 14th July 2025. Some works of the exhibition at the Railway Station will remain open for longer time included in the project CULTURE ON THE STREETS! The exhibition was part of the official commemoration program coordinated by the University of Sarajevo, as well as part of the WARM FESSTIVAL 2025, which takes place from 7th to 12th July. It was realized in cooperation with GALLERY 11/07/95, which has been active in the field of genocide memory through art and photography for more than a decade.

The exhibition presented 172 photographs, which are only a small part of a number of the photographs DAMIR ŠAGOLJ took over a period of three decades, during which he visited Srebrenica and the surrounding areas, recording the daily life of the survivors, their immense pain and suffering, but also the long-term painstaking work of finding and identifying the victims, and burials of the remains at the Potočari Memorial Center. The exhibition was created through close collaboration between the author and the curator on shaping the visual and emotional rhythm of the installation.

On the photos at the gallery of the Academy of Fine Arts, we see faces of many people: mothers and wives of those killed, family members, but also children born after the war, and people who came to pay their respects to the victims. Damir Sagolj’s photographs captured the eerie silence of petrified pain on their faces. Photos are not displayed chronologically, because the pain we see is unfortunately the same in 1997 and 2021. The years pass, but the pain does not diminish. In the middle of the gallery, a cube is placed, inside of which are photographs that show the long-term work of forensic experts on discovering and identifying the remains of victims.

In a strange way, we see and feel the same silence and pain on the panoramic photos placed in the corridor leading to the platforms at the Railway Station in Sarajevo. At first glance, those are just images of some landscapes. The photos are printed on canvas, which additionally gives the impression of almost painted abstract landscapes. However, at this location, on the Srebrenica Genocide Victims‘ Square, a series of twelve photographs of the place of mass execution around Srebrenica, taken in 2020, has been displayed. These abstract yet powerfully suggestive photographs echo the silence, vastness and trauma embedded in the landscape. Their large format, three meters wide, and powerful visual language communicate directly with the public space, especially during the week of remembrance. Together, these photographs exhibited at two locations form a long, silent meditation on violence, absence, and the act of remembrance.