Sacrifice Zones: WARM Academy Participants Present Collective Exhibition

As part of WARM Festival 2026, participants of the WARM Academy presented Sacrifice Zones, a collective exhibition exploring environmental destruction, war, exclusion and the invisible structures of power that shape contemporary societies.

Presented at the European House of Culture and National Minorities from 6–12 July, the exhibition brought together the work of eleven artists and journalists from different parts of the world, developed during this year’s WARM Academy in Sarajevo.

Taking its title from the concept of “sacrifice zones” – places and communities made expendable in the name of progress, security or economic development – the exhibition examined how systems of domination create spaces where environmental degradation, violence and social exclusion converge. Rather than focusing on a single region or conflict, the works explored common patterns that connect diverse experiences across continents, questioning the narratives through which injustice becomes normalized and invisible.

Inspired by Donna Haraway’s reflection that “it matters what stories make worlds,” the exhibition invited visitors to reconsider not only what they see, but also the limits of what they have been taught to see. Through photography, visual storytelling and multidisciplinary approaches, the participating artists challenged audiences to imagine alternative ways of understanding conflict, memory and human coexistence.

The exhibition featured works by Adan Abu Dalu, Anita Karabašić, Armin Graca, Beatrice Blythe, Daria Goncharova, Daro Sulakauri, Karina Synytsia, Nemanja Podraščić, Nima Dehghani, Stela Knežević and Tommaso Gioia.

Sacrifice Zones was curated by Adnan Oruč, Lamija Idrizbegović, Luca Tesei Li Bassi and Soraja Zagić, with exhibition design by Lamija Idrizbegović and the introductory text by Luca Tesei Li Bassi.

The exhibition was developed as part of the WARM Academy 2026 and the WARM Earth initiative, in collaboration with Pro Peace and FES-SOE, continuing the foundations’s commitment to fostering critical, cross-disciplinary approaches to reporting, visual storytelling and contemporary conflict.