Photo Journey through the Balkans: Do You Know Ohrid?
Photo Gallery: Balkan Journey
11 January 2013
When people speak of the Balkans, they usually mean “Europe’s Powder Keg.” At best they mean the Balkan Mountains. The Goethe-Institut launched a call for photographs and received images from the region between the Adriatic Sea and the Bosporus that tell other stories.
When Jutta Benzenberg arrived in Albania in the summer of 1999, the country was overshadowed by the Kosovo War. The art photographer remembers people in reception camps: “They hardly spoke, but their eyes told stories.” To Marina Jozic from Bosnia and Herzegovina, her country is more than war and buildings in ruins. She recalls sunny days in Jajce at Pliva Lake. Ebru Metin was impressed by the Old Town of Ohrid.
What is typical for our neighbouring countries in southeastern Europe? And what do we not know as much about them? Natives and visitors to the Balkan Peninsula, art and amateur photographers captured snapshots and impressions with their cameras. Together, they illustrate the project Daring to Remember by the Goethe-Instituts in southeastern Europe: Eleven nations, a vicissitudinous past and hundreds of memories.
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