Signs By The Roadside

Signs By The Roadside – Following the outbreak of the war in the Balkans, tens of thousands of people fled from Bosnia. Over 60,000 of these displaced persons found a second homeland in Austria. I was one of them.

The wounds of the civil war are deep-seated. If one looks at the states of former Yugoslavia today, ethnic tensions are pervasive. In addition, the region struggles under social and religious conflicts where Memory and history have become a new battleground.

The images in this book, organized in three picture cycles, will take you through almost 30 years of my work in the newly created states of former Yugoslavia.

Without judgment and further explanations, these pictures are fragments of my reality. They follow no chronological sequence, nor do they claim to be complete. Occurrences with positive and negative connotations alternate, collide and merge. Planes of partially incomplete photographic thoughts are joined together.

Signs by the Roadside inhabits a space where the historical and political narratives that explain the country’s past collide with an individual’s lived experience. Dealing with the repercussions of war – with all its layers – it’s not only a book that broadens the mind and thus enlightens us but also mirrors reality.

Though this book is being published now, it has won some awards. Among the awards, the book was a finalist for the renowned 2020 Mack First book award, and was the finalist for the Rencontres d’Arles Book Awards 2022.