SARAJEVO, May 26 (FENA) – The exhibition ‘Life in Besieged Sarajevo – Through the Lens of Rikard Larma’, opened yesterday at the Brusa Bezistan annex of the Sarajevo Museum, features a selection of photographs taken during the siege of Sarajevo from 1992 to 1995. Through both documentary and artistic expression, the images bear witness to everyday life, suffering, and the dignity of citizens living in wartime conditions.
The exhibition’s author, Rikard Larma, one of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s most prominent photographers and photojournalists, said the photographs were taken during the siege of Sarajevo beginning in 1992, noting that the images now on display date up to 1995.
He added that the exhibition also includes several photographs taken during his work at Oslobođenje Press.
Larma noted that the photographs had previously been exhibited abroad, explaining that they were printed in Italy and featured in a major exhibition in Padua.
He emphasized that the original exhibition consisted of around 70 photographs selected by Abdulah Sidran, who also wrote the introductory text for the first exhibition of this kind held in Sarajevo during the war, at Chamber Theatre 55.
The exhibition’s author recalled that even near the end of the war, he had been thinking about how the photographs being created would remain a lasting testimony to the events of that period. He said he felt a responsibility to preserve them so they would remain available to future generations and ensure that what happened would not be forgotten.
”However, it turned out that I no longer lived in Sarajevo afterward. Others, therefore, took on the responsibility of preserving them. I am now continuing this work by publishing my magazine and also working on a book,” Larma said.
Director of the Archive of the Federation of BiH, Hajrudin Ćuprija, also addressed attendees, saying that the exhibition had been particularly difficult to curate from among hundreds, even thousands, of photographs.
”It was difficult to select just 30 photographs, and each one tells its own story. We made a selection of photographs that speak to what happened during the 1992–1995 period. We called it ‘Life’ because the images show the lives of people in besieged Sarajevo,” Ćuprija said.
He stressed the importance of preserving such documentation and said it was a special honor that an agreement had been signed with the author under which one collection of photographs would be entrusted to the Archive for permanent preservation.
Ćuprija recalled that, thanks to publication in major global media outlets such as Associated Press and other international media organizations, the photographs served as a kind of conscience and reminder to the international public and centers of power about events unfolding in Sarajevo.
Director of the Sarajevo Museum, Indira Kučuk Sorguč, said the institution has collaborated for many years with the Archive on documenting memories of the tragic history of Bosnia and Herzegovina and other subjects that historians should research and present.
The exhibition is organized by the Archive of the Federation fo BiH in cooperation with the Sarajevo Museum.
