The Museum of Wartime Childhood organized an exhibition of works by Milomir Kovačević Strašni – “Children of War, People of Peace” at the Academy of Fine Arts in Sarajevo, for his eighth birthday. It contains powerful visual stories – about forty photographs of children taken during the war, along with portraits of them as adults. He tried to have them filmed in the same place.
Milomir Kovačević Strašni with many emotions recalls the situations in which those photos were taken, and he photographed people he knew. Among them are the children of his colleagues and friends, and his nephew is also in one of those photos. All of them are now educated people, engaged in different jobs and are successful in what they do.
“The work process takes a long time, and we will continue to work. Mostly everyone is thrilled with the idea of taking photos again, after many years. Looking at the photos arouses emotions in them,” he emphasized.
Kovačević was also in Sarajevo during the war, recorded everyday life, shared fate and life with citizens in wartime Sarajevo. He remembers the nostalgic moments, when people were connected to each other, ‘with all the ugly happenings’.
Milomir Kovačević Strašni’s photos are black and white, and he explains that ‘that’s how I learned.’
“I see black and white, and between black and white there are a million gray tones that have their own warmth. That’s how I started photography years ago, that’s how I look, that’s how I think, I do everything by hand. I control the whole process, it also gives me pleasure and it has its own power,” he said.
The exhibition will be on display until April 3rd at the Academy of Fine Arts in Sarajevo, it was prepared for that space, and the author’s wish is that his works be seen by everyone because he believes that the photographs depict an important historical moment, important for this city and its inhabitants.
“I think that everyone should look at the fact that in the end life is the one that emerged and defeated everything else,” he emphasized in a press statement.
The Museum of War Childhood is celebrating eight years since the opening of its permanent exhibition in Sarajevo, they are satisfied with the results of their work, they have created a collection that is unique in the world with more than six thousand exhibits from twenty different wars. They work with schools and universities from Bosnia and Herzegovina and the world, bringing together educators who deal with peace education. They have an office in Kiev (Ukraine) and researchers around the world.
“So in that sense, that collection is becoming a global heritage, a cultural global heritage. We are proud of that work, it is a work that is always in progress and that collection continues to expand,” the founder and general director of the Museum, Jasminko Halilović, told reporters.
Regarding the work of Milomir Kovačević Strašni, he says that it is of crucial importance for the documentation of what happened in Sarajevo during the siege, and for him personally it is a very strong example of how an artist can completely grow with his city and become somehow inseparable.
“I think that the fate of Sarajevo is inseparable from the fate of Milomir Kovačević and vice versa. And it is indeed a pleasure and an honor for us and we are grateful, as a Museum, that we have the opportunity to work with such an artist and that we have the opportunity to celebrate the eighth birthday of the Museum in this way,” he pointed out, Fena writes.
