Mar 27, 2022

Twenty-five years after the Siege of Sarajevo, Spanish journalist Gervasio Sánchez returns. He meets with people he photographed as children during the war. How did the conflict change their lives? Between 1992 and 1996, Spanish war photographer Gervasio Sánchez documented the siege of Sarajevo. He captured scenes of barricaded streets, walls riddled with bullet holes, burned-out cars, graves, and the destruction of the National Library. Amid these images of war, there were also people: not only fighting but also going about their daily lives and mourning the dead. Again and again, children appear in Gervasio's photographs of the war-torn city, whether in playgrounds, backyards, or playing among wrecked vehicles. Gervasio kept in touch with some of them, and met them again on his first trip back to Sarajevo, 25 years after the siege ended. What has become of them? What was it like to grow up during and after the war? Some are overwhelmed when they see his pictures, because they don't have their own photos from that time. The aesthetic of Gervasio's black-and-white images is almost poetic, standing in stark contrast to the brutal scenes they sometimes show. And yet, for those who were photographed, the images also evoke fond memories of childhood.