Weekend Portfolio: Armin Graca's Dès Vu Sarajevo
Writing and Photography by Armin Graca
Photo Editing by Ari Adams
About Armin: Armin Graca (1990.) is a documentary photographer and self-publisher from Sarajevo. Graca uses his camera to document social everyday life, telling stories through a visual experience.
About the Project: Dès Vu Sarajevo is a personal story of my relationship with my hometown - Sarajevo.
As I grew older, I found myself at a crossroads. One part of me wants to leave Sarajevo, and the other wants to stay here for good. The heavy burden of war history still lingers in people’s lives. The war has ended, but in some ways, it has never stopped occupying our minds.
The country is divided physically and ethnically, and politicians use it for their own good. This bothers me because I realize it keeps the country in a state of status quo, never going forward, always remaining in the same spot.
However, I won’t give up on Sarajevo that easily. I want to take out of it as much as I can. Sarajevo is a big inspiration for me, and I’m trying my best to document the streets of this city and thus explain my feelings, for which I still don’t have words.
In a sense, photographs serve as a replacement for a specific memory. They are nothing more than a record of an event that has happened. Only for a brief moment, when there’s a subject in front of the lens, is there a connection between the image and the physical subject, lost in the moment after. Because of this relationship, every photograph is a subjective experience that allows interpretation based on personal beliefs, emotions, and opinions. But in that split second, as one decides what to capture, he becomes in complete control of what this reality should be.
