“Guardians of the Museum”: The Exhibition as an Introduction to a Big Project

[wzslider autoplay=”true”]Photo exhibition by author Zijah Gafić “Guardians of the Museum” was opened last night in the National Museum of B&H in Sarajevo.

Exhibition is the announcement of civil action aimed to resolve the position of National Museum of B&H under the name “I am Museum”.

In an attempt to answer the question of who are the people who, despite of the fact that museum is closed to the public since 2012, are coming every day to the National Museum and preserve our common cultural treasure, Zijah Gafić started to come to the museum and portrait his employees from January 2015.

Each of the more than 30 portraits represents one “guardian”, one untold story of the National Museum of B&H, the responsibility and love for the work and the profession, past’s but also today’s working conditions in this institution. It also represents the struggle for survival and dilemma between hoping for a better tomorrow and conciliating with the inability to change the situation.

“This work and photos are not important at all, the important are the people who are on the photos, and everything else is secondary,” said Gafić to reporters.

He added that this was just an attempt to tell what happens to the Museum through stories of people who work here for years without any compensation.

“This is the beginning and the end. Photos are only the illustration,” said Gafić.

(Source: novovrijeme.ba)