Bosnians

This volume features Lowe’s photographs of the war in Sarajevo, the Bosnia capital, 1992-1995, together with his photographs taken during the aftermath of the war (1999-2003). A small number of the 1992-95 photographs were exhibited in Sarajevo in 2000 as part of the research process to gather response from the local community. Many of these responses were later utilised as handwritten texts in the book.

Some of the photographs were published in the press including ‘Time’ and ‘The Independent on Sunday Review’. However the majority did not enter the public domain until this 2005 publication as a result of Lowe returning to his archive and reviewing the largely unseen material with the benefit of hindsight.

The photographs are juxtaposed with contextual texts researched by Lowe from a variety of contemporary and historical sources, including an extract from a mid nineteenth century travel writer, a radio intercept from a Bosnian Serb General and a quotation from ‘Newsday’. An essay by the BBC foreign correspondent, Allan Little author of The Death of Yugoslavia’, is also included.

The research challenge was to develop a method of photographing the war that counterposed the atrocities of war against the humanity of the survivors, creating a more balanced view of a civilian population under siege. As Jelena Obradovic, one of the reviewers of the volume, has observed, Lowe took as ethnographic approach, a position that was strengthened by the return journeys to photograph the aftermath.

In 2001 the researcher presented photographs to survivors and engaged in further research on their memories and reconstructed identities. This resulted in a video collaboration with Kristino Leko produced for the Sarajevo Centre For Contemporary Art at:

http://www.pro.ba/01_video_produkcija/e_video_produkcija/e_2001_sarajevo_intern

The book was part funded by a grant from the Bosnian Institute. It was printed in both English and Bosnian.