Shedding the Veils Brings Stories of Conflict to the Streets of Sarajevo

On 7 July, WARM Festival 2026 opened its traditional open-air exhibition with Shedding the Veils by Egyptian photojournalist Nariman El-Mofty, presented across 15 locations in central Sarajevo.

The exhibition was inaugurated with a public walk and talk led by the artist and curator Lejla Hodžić, beginning in front of the National Theatre and guiding visitors through the exhibition sites scattered across the city centre.

For the fourth consecutive year, WARM Festival has transformed Sarajevo into an open-air gallery, bringing carefully selected and thoughtfully designed photography from contemporary conflicts to public spaces. By placing powerful visual stories directly into the everyday life of the city, these annual exhibitions invite thousands of residents and visitors to engage with issues of war, memory and human resilience beyond the walls of galleries and museums.

Rather than focusing on a single conflict or geography, Shedding the Veils brings together photographs from Nariman El-Mofty’s years of reporting across some of the world’s most challenging environments. The exhibition explores the universal experiences that connect people living through war, displacement, loss and survival, revealing the shared humanity that exists beneath political, cultural and geographical divisions.

Curated and designed by Lejla Hodžić, the exhibition is presented in partnership with Gallery 11/07/95, Kultura na ulice 2026! and ZANAT. It will remain on view throughout the streets of Sarajevo until the end of the summer, continuing WARM’s commitment to making documentary photography accessible to everyone and bringing stories from conflict zones into dialogue with the city that knows their meaning all too well.