STANDING TO REMEMBER: Sarajevo 1994–1996

STANDING TO REMEMBER: Sarajevo 1994–1996
Photo Exhibition
June 4–17, 2026
Sarajevo Memorial Center, Kovači, Sarajevo
Opening: June 4, 2026, 19:00
Curated by Lejla Hodžić

As part of the cooperation between the Ministry for Veterans’ Affairs of Canton Sarajevo, the University of Sarajevo, the Sarajevo Memorial Center, and the WARM Foundation, the exhibition STANDING TO REMEMBER: Sarajevo 1994–1996 presents the work of Mohsen Rastani, one of Iran’s most important documentary photographers.

The exhibition brings together sixty photographs made in Sarajevo and across Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1994 and 1996, during and immediately after the siege. Having arrived in Bosnia after documenting wars in Iran and Lebanon, Rastani recorded everyday life, the consequences of war, the first moments of peace, and the people who continued to live despite destruction and loss.

Mohsen Rastani (1958) belongs to the generation of Iranian photographers that emerged after the revolution. A graduate of the University of Tehran, he has spent decades documenting social and humanitarian issues in conflict and post-conflict environments. His work has been exhibited extensively in Iran and internationally, including at the Venice Biennale in 2011 and at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris in 2014. Today he lives and works in Germany.

Mohsen Rastani is not a conventional war photographer. His photographs portray people living through war, recording pain, suffering, and loneliness, but also brief moments of happiness. In his own words, photography is a medium for freezing time within a frame. Yet his images are full of life: a man still stands on one leg, a woman with a burned face is still alive, a child on the street looks back at the viewer with the gaze of an adult. Time is not frozen in any of these photographs.

Mohsen Rastani prints his nightmares, places them within square and rectangular frames, and shows us the profound bitterness of a world filled with catastrophe, reminding us not to forget our fears and nightmares. He attempts to awaken us in a world on the brink of disaster, while also offering hope that peace is possible.

Presented for the first time in Sarajevo, these photographs offer a rare and intimate testimony by a foreign author who witnessed Bosnia and Herzegovina at a defining moment in its recent history. Created during the photographer’s extended stay in the country, they document the transition from war to peace and invite us to reflect on memory, resilience, and the lasting consequences of conflict.

Thirty years later, Rastani’s photographs remain a powerful reminder of why war, art, reporting, and memory continue to matter.