Sarajevo 1992-1996

At the Italian War History Museum in Rovereto, a photo exhibition illustrates some of the moments experienced by the population during the siege of the city of Sarajevo.

The Italian War History Museum, together with the Balkans Caucasus Transeuropa Observatory, presents a selection of images taken by photojournalist Mario Boccia during the longest siege of Sarajevo, offering an insight into the resistance of the city and its inhabitants between 1992 and 1996.

The siege of the city of Sarajevo was one of the harshest events of the Yugoslav wars, which for 10 years shook the countries that emerged from the dissolution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, helping to define the current geopolitical configuration of the region. The conflicts had a dramatic impact on the lives of the populations involved and took on the character of ‘wars on civilians’.

The photographs on display narrate the drama of the war, from the side of the besieged and the besieged, through an image-based narrative that brings us irrevocably back to the present. The protagonists of the shots are the people, with their determination to defend the values of a multiple identity, and the places, in a city that was also wounded in its symbolic buildings, including the National Library, hit and set on fire by a grenade in August 1992.

A section of the exhibition is also dedicated to solidarity initiatives that involved associations and citizens in various European countries, including Italy. Alongside the pictures, a number of objects collected by Ambrogio Paraboni, an Italian citizen who made numerous humanitarian trips to Bosnia Herzegovina in the 1990s, are displayed.

The exhibition offers a lucid analysis of the impact of war on people, society and culture and provides a tool for developing a critical awareness of the history of conflict.

The decision to curate this photographic exhibition dedicated to the siege of Sarajevo thus stems from the desire to recount a recent conflict, embracing a museum function that is also that of a place of interpretation of the present.