Grain #12

www.grain.rs

GRAIN Digital

street and documentary photography magazine Issue #12, June 2018.

JUVENILE by STEFAN ĐORĐEVIĆ

Post - conflict reality in Kosovo by WILLEM POELSTRA

For Hanna, Future stories from the past...

intro Number twelve is here. Now, we have a dirty dozen issues. There is a very turbulent period behind us. With many important thing held and planned for the rest of the year. The most important thing is Grain fest, sucessfully done in the city of Užice. Great experience, a new moment in Grain life. Grain best of group exhibition has its way, after Belgrade and Užice, exhibition goes to Novi Sad. Finally, audience in Belgrade is going to see a great photo essay on post- conflict Kosovo by Dutch photographer Wiliem Poelstra. For those who miss the exhibition, here is a photo essay.

We wont take your time for now, anymore. Until the next issue. Enjoy in summer and have a good light!

With compliments,

Igor Čoko and Tamara Petrović

#12 CONTENT 003 006 007 008 010 012 014

Intro Life Wild moment Events: GRAIN FEST Events: BELGRADE PHOTO MONTH FESTIVAL Events: TOMISLAV PETERNEK EXHIBITION IMRE SZABO: BLAST FROM THE PAST DOSSIER: NINETEES IN SERBIA

030 WILLEM POELSTRA: FOR HANNA, Future stories from the past 052 Stefan đorđević: juvenile 074 jamel van de pas: Between External and Internal: to Shoot Like A Boy With A Gun 092 SOUMYA CHATERJEE: VERTICAL LIMITATIONS- A STUDY ON DWARFISM 106 IVAN BLAŽEV: at 3 am

IMPRESSUM: Digital Grain, digital magazine showcasing street and documentary photography.

Issue #12. June 2018.

Editor: Igor Čoko Instagram page editor: Vladimir Živojinović Creative team: Tamara Petrović, Mira Vujović, Vukašin Danilović, Narnya Imbrin Publisher: GRAIN, Husinskih rudara 3/11 11060 Belgrade, SERBIA www.grain.rs www.issuu.com/digitalgrain https://www.facebook.com/grainphotomagazine/ Instagram: @grain_magazine E mail: magazin.grain@gmail.com Photo credits: Cover: Willem Poelstra Copyright: Using photographs from Grain magazine is not allowed without autors permission. Photographs are protected and alowed to use just for Grain magazine purpose.

LIFE

Tired boy having a rest during harvest in rural China. Serbian, but China based photographer Alen Đozgić works on his very important series of life and street photography from the Sichuan province. His e book is going to be released soon in Grain e books edition. Stay tuned for more...

Photo credits: Alen Đozgić

WILD MOMENT

FIFA is planning to issue travel guides for an expected 100,000 Muslim fans at the Russia 2018 World Cup. The guides will detail the locations of mosques, halal restaurants, and even information on prayer times. A total seven Muslim-majority countries qualified for the Russia 2018 World Cup this summer: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Iran, Tunisia, Senegal and Nigeria.

Photo credits: Morteza Nikoubazl / Reuters

EVENTS : GRAIN FEST, UŽICE 25-26.05.2018.

GRAIN Fest is born! Held in Reflektor Gallery in Užice, from 25-26. of May 2018., festival offered some of the best and most iconic moments from the history of Serbian and Croatian photogrpahy from the civil wars during 90s. Visitors were able to see and hear photographers Hrvoje Polan, Imre Szabo and Miloš Cvetković Cvele and talk to them on their experience during history of photography moments.

Day two was dedicated to documentary movies visual experience, showing some of the most important movies directed by Dragan Wende, Boris Mitić, Sali S. Sallini, Marina Kovačević and Dejan Petrović. See you next year agin!

Photo credits: Biljana Diković

EVENTS : BELGRADE PHOTO MONTH 29.03-30.04.2018.

April in Belgrade was dedicated to Belgrade Photo Month. Third release of this festival, brought to the audience great amount of photography exhibitions, becoming one of the most important events in Serbia. Many happy returns from GRAIN team!

Photo credits: Neni Marković, Vladimir Jević, Snežana Krstić

EVENTS : TOMISLAV PETERNEK - “Red University ‘Karl Marx’ – Half of century forever”

Half of century ago, in the 1968. during student protests in Yugoslavia, Tomislav Peternek, the most iconic living serbian photographer, held an exhibition with the most effective and ilustrated moments from the protests. That exhibition was censored and forbidden. Celebrating 50 years from then, having the same setup, he covered photographs with white papers, uncovered one by one by Snežana Nikšić, famous actress. Same people, same scenario. Probably one of the most important exhibition held in Belgrade this year.

Photo credits: Igor Mandić

DOSSIER

BLAST FROM THE PAST:

NINETEES IN SERBIA

photo essay by: Imre Szabo

Negosavci near Vukovar, Croatia. October, 1991.

“Blast from the past” is a dossier dedicated to the Ninetees, last decade of the past century that most of people wants to forget. GRAIN presents work of Imre Szabo. Imre Szabo is one of the leading and most important photographers from Serbia. He published photos since 1974. participated at over 200 exhibitions within the country and abroad, with numerous awards.

Independent exhibitions: Kikinda (1974, 1988 and 2011), Mokrin (1977 and 1982), Skopje (1983) and Belgrade 1987,2011), Banatski Brestovac 2010, Paraćin 2012, Istanbul (2015). Professional photographer since 1980 as newspaper photographer, initially at the editorial office of “Ilustrovana Politika” (until 1989), after that briefly at the daily newspaper “Politika”, after that at the editorial office of “Intervju” (until autumn 1991) and “Nin” until 1995, when he has decided to independently work with applied photography. In the meantime, he has worked as photography editor at the daily newspaper Danas, after that at the weekly magazine Blic News, Novi magazin, Status monthly magazine and for the news agency Fonet. His photos were published in numerous significant international journals (Stern, Focus, Spiegel, Mond, Lexpress, Time, Newsweek, Herald Tribune, Le Nouvell Observateur…) and in most Yugoslav newspapers, also in numerous monographs, catalogues and publications. He has been a member of ULUPUDS (Assotiation the Serbian Applied Artists) since 1985. He is currently a freelance in Belgrade, Serbia.

Slobodan Miloťević in Kosovo Polje, Serbia. April, 1987.

Demonstrations against Slobodan Miloťević regime. Belgrade, March 9th 1991.

Citizens waiting in line for bread. Belgrade, March 1993.

Vojislav Šešelj, leader of Serbian radical party in Knin, Croatia, 1991.

Serbs at the barricades in Slavonia, Croatia. 1991.

Urosevac, Kosovo. 1989.

Children refugees in Negoslavci, Croatia. October, 1991.

Struga village in Banija, Croatia. July, 1991.

Mass funeral in Bratunac, Bosnia. March, 1993.

Vukovar, Croatia. October, 1991,

Mortuary in Djakovica, Kosovo. April, 1999.

Angel of Mercy effects. Djakovca, Kosovo. April 1999.

Demonstrations against Slobodan Miloťević regime. Belgrade, March 9th 1991.

POST - CONFLICT REALITY IN KOSOVO

FOR HANNA

FUTURE STORIES FROM the past... text by: Guido Van Eijck

photo essay by: Willem Poelstra

My mother Hanna was Jewish. Many of her family members were killed in Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War. She was relieved her daughter only had sons. The Jewish bloodline is passed down through the mother, so it would end with my sister’s sons and me. There would be no more victims in her family. My father Albert decided to move to Berlin in 1941 and found a job at Schichau-Werke, a locomotive construction company that built the trains used for the deportation of Jews to concentration camps. He returned to The Netherlands at the end of the war when the Russian army arrived, afraid they might consider him a collaborator. My parents met in Amsterdam shortly after the war and married several years later. They managed to overcome the hatred that divided so many Dutch communities after the war and ignored the protests from my mother’s family and friends. They let the past be the past. As their son, I did not know much about their past. It was only in 2011, after they had both died, that I found a box filled with letters, pictures and other documents. It unfolded a history they had preferred not to speak of.

I wanted to mirror my parents’ untold past to present-day stories of war and the deep scars it leaves on people and their communities. And to show a timeless story that keeps repeating itself. In early 2012, I travelled to Kosovo for the first time. It’s hard to miss the effects of the war that took place in 1998 and 1999. The Albanian majority and Serbian minority in Kosovo are still deeply divided. I wanted to show how war and its aftermath affect people and how individuals carry traumas with them for the rest of their lives. Because these are stories that keep repeating themselves.

I closely cooperated with a team of academics in the fields of history and anthropology. They urged me to always dig one layer deeper and to keep a certain distance to emotions and politics involved. And to not take anything for granted, but to stay sensitive to the historical, political and social context of what happened in Kosovo since the 1990s – and before.

The exhibition at the Parobrod in Belgrade brings my project to an end, more than six years after it started. The project was first exhibited in its entirety in Pristina, in October 2016. You could say that both ‘sides’ have now had a chance to see it. In Pristina, the works were exhibited outside, along the busy Mother Theresa Boulevard and right in front of the Parliament. I saw people looking at my pictures who’d otherwise never visit a museum. Some of them got angry or sad, while reliving memories of friends and family they’d lost in the war. Another person didn’t like my decision to show the increased presence of the orthodox Islam in Kosovo. ‘Why did you photograph those people praying, that’s not Kosovo’, he said. But most responses were positive. I saw young people translate the English texts to their parents and older people contemplating the sad fates of people who they’d always considered to be the enemy.

This project seeks to encourage a debate about the way people relate to one another in the aftermath of war. It’s a universal topic, that’s why I started by telling my parents’ history. But it’s also why I decided to bring my photos ‘back’ to Kosovo. Dozens of people told me their stories, invited me to their homes, trusted me. Tempting though it may be to simply return home, show the photos in a museum, and discuss what other countries should do; it’s better to retell these stories where they happened. And although these stories didn’t happen in Belgrade, the city is inherently linked to the events that took place in Kosovo. I hope that people here want to look at my pictures with the same openness I witnessed in Pristina. One might ask why someone from a whole different part of Europe should show up and tell these stories? I think being an outsider allows a certain distance.

Neutrality has always been central to this project. I don’t want to tell people what they should or shouldn’t think. Instead, being an independent documentary photographer, I wanted to show the suffering of all the people I met, people who share the same dark past. Take Kosovo-Serbian Dejan, who saw his friend get killed and was gravely injured himself over a land dispute in Western-Kosovo in 2011. Jorgovanka had to bury her son Dimitrije after he was shot for no reason in the streets of Gracanica. Or Kosovo-Albanian Nehat, who showed me a memorial for the victims of a massacre in the vicinity of Prizren including no less than 43 members of his extended family. His cousin Tauland told me the house where he was born was used as an execution site. Dozens of bodies were burned inside. He wanted to save the house, he said, as a memorial.

There’s an old Jewish saying: ‘He who saves the life of one man saves the world entire’. In particular, I hope to reach a young audience with my pictures. After all, it’s up to them to reconcile themselves with those who used to be the enemy. The book For Hanna, Future Stories from the Past, an account of the entire project, has sections with the entire text translated in Serbian and Albanian. Language shouldn’t be an obstacle to read these stories.

The Forhanna Foundation – founded to support documentary photography – cooperated with the Belgrade Fund for Political Excellence in inviting professional photographers from Serbia and Kosovo to join a three-day-masterclass on visual storytelling in Belgrade.

It’s an effort to bring people together in what they share instead of what separates them.

Perhaps it can contribute, if only a little bit, to young people setting aside old differences.

Over the last few years I have encountered numerous communities that were marked by a dark past. But I also met people who managed to overcome their feelings of hatred.

Just like my parents did.

About THE AUTOR

Willem Poelstra (1956) is a documentary photographer from Amsterdam, The Netherlands. After a successful career as a professional diver and as a manager in both the offshore and the advertising industry, he changed to photography. In 2005, he graduated with honours from the Amsterdam Photo Academy. He made the book 112 Ambulance Amsterdam (2008) and an in-depth coverage of a working-class neighbourhood in The Hague, among others. His work was awarded several Silver Camera Awards, the most important prize for photography in The Netherlands. For more than five years he worked on his Kosovo-project “for Hanna, Future Stories from the Past...� that resulted in both a traveling exhibition and photobook. The latter was named one of the best photobooks of 2017 by Dutch daily de Volkskrant.

LIFE

JUVENILE text by Igor Čoko (combine with Dazed review) photo essay by: Stefan Đorđević

„Kruška” is a slang for the city of Kruševac, host of the the largest juvenile correctional facility in the Balkans. So, for the inmates, “Kruška” simbolyzes name of the correctional facility, not the name of the city.

Stefan Đorđević, documentary photographer , brings deeply efected scenes of the minors that have been forgotten and sidelined by Serbian society. Juvenile, documents life within a correctional facility for the young adults and children who’ve been sent there. For these young people, who range in age from 14-23, the outside world can recede into an unfamiliar place – particularly given that the longest court sentence that can be imposed is four years, a lifetime for any restless young person who dreams of freedom.

Juvenile communicates the monotony and hopelessness of a life lived removed from the outside world while showing how youth is a universal concept, with the hopes and fears of the minors within the facility being no different to those who live outside of it. But for all that the subject matter might appear at first bleak – particularly given the uncompromising visuals of the postSoviet correctional facility itself – Juvenile is a hopeful series.

Though many of the young people portrayed in Stefan photos are likely to never fully escape a life of crime, Juvenile maintains a candid and honest approach. By participating in their daily lives and not letting the stories of their past saturate their portrayal in the photos, Juvenile connects with the teenagers on a more intimate level. The result is as raw as it is captivating, capturing moments of dejection as much as instances of a faith and hope that even a life within a facility can’t fully extinguish.

These photographs are important on many levels. First of all as a document, not the fiction like iconic tv show “Sivi dom” recorded at the same place thirty and so years ago by the essence professional actors of that time. Instead, this is real life photography. Stefan as a man with the camera is present, distanced but he feels the moment, he feels the emotions among the walls.

His visual narative is very complexed and developed, and thats why this series works so good.

“Sivi dom” three decades later, among the same walls. Untold stories, broken taboo and fantastic expression. One of the most important documentary, so far...

The commander monitors the inmates of the “VP dom� football team, dutring the match played in the village nearby correctional facility.

Inmates who are trained for hairdressers are scratching the inmates who are trained in the limestone workshop.

Inmate show his painted work during art section.

Vanja takes his free time in the backyard.

Tefta puts the braid down to Slađana, while waiting loundry to wash.

Marko Kinez waiting carpentry workshop section to be done.

Silvija in a smoking allowed room.

Inmates in a carpentry workshop.

Krstić, one and only „VP dom” football team supporter.

Marko in his room in opened section.

Vanja in his room in opened section.

Inmates wield their hands in the metal - rafting workshop, during a pause of the work, .

Aniko is having a phone call with her host mom, while other inmates waiting in line.

New year theater play. After the show, Santa Claus gave Bible to all inmates.

Jelena and Anica preparing themselves for a New Year celebration.

Jelena with new boyfriend.

David makes an angel in the snow.

MANILA NOIR

Between External and Internal: To Shoot Like A Boy With A Gun photo essay by: Jamel Van De Pas

It was my first night in Manila and I had been awake for nearly 60 hours. Friend, colleague and host-for-a-month Brian Sergio had picked me up from the airport. Even though I had already had too much free beer in the airplane, I was happy to agree with his suggestion to grab some beers. Somehow not feeling bothered by the effects of sleep deprivation and alcohol I was even motivated to go out and take pictures. One of the very first pictures I took that first night in Manila is a picture of a boy aiming his gun.

It would have been quite silly to ask the young boy about the mental process prior to choosing who or what to aim his gun at. The so-called shooting was a playful act that did not involve any rational motives, apart from the activity itself bringing joy to the kid. His choice of target changed almost as quickly as his instincts allowed him to; the gun is fake and thus the choice of target is completely up to the one aiming the gun. There are no consequences after all. In the same manner the choice of target also becomes negligible, everything is based on the little notion of aiming and pulling the trigger intuitively for the sake of joy.

During the following couple of weeks I would shoot Manila the same way this little boy was shooting Manila during my encounter with him.

Looking at the general interpretation of what photography is, I would be quite a fool to make this comparison. After all, the tool I am using does actually shoot. There even is a consequence when using a camera: a photograph is made. When firing an actual gun, the choice of target carries importance due to the action having consequences. When firing a camera, most photographers aim to document something for a clear purpose. Whether it’s to show other people what happened, to privately look back at what they captured, to create something artistically or to express a certain message, the choice of target again carries an importance.

That is the point where I must state that the act of photography is something I experience differently. When I take pictures I don’t shoot to record. For me taking a photograph is the result of an instinctive urge to shoot. As this happens with every photograph I take, the choice of target again becomes like that of the boy with the gun: negligible.

Due to this absence of intent behind the pictures I take, I can preserve the objectivity in capturing what is in front of the camera. The pictures have no message, they are a mere representation of what happened the moment I clicked the shutter.

Although it may seem as if I’m trying to imply it, the beauty of photography is not that we can use a device that (with the right approach) can duplicate reality in its most objective form.

We experience reality in two different forms; an external one that exists as ‘the world’ around us and an internal one that exists as our interpretation of the external one. The external reality consists of what things are whereas the internal one consists of how things appear to us. When the camera is operated by a person who calls himself a photographer, people usually assume the way it´s used depends fully on the second form of reality: to capture how the operator interprets things.

For official purposes photographs are often used in a context in which they are expected to fully depend on the first form of reality; images that are taken to be used as evidence for something, images that capture historical events or images that show the identity of a person.

By copying and preserving the external reality objectively and pushing the visual limits of this copy in a subjective manner, the image starts to drift in a realm between these two forms of experiencing reality.

To further explain what the visual limits of such a copy are one must keep in mind the basic aspects of what a photograph is. Whether it is captured on film or digitally, there is a light sensitive surface capturing the reflections of light on the world around us (much like our eyes).

This sensitivity creates a distinct difference between a photograph and reality the moment it is captured, as grain is now present in the image. The presence of grain gives us the first tool we can use to subjectively distort the photograph. By choice of film or by choice of settings, a photograph captures the world either in the form of light, shadow and colour or purely as light and shadow. Choosing to capture the world in black and white would be the second form of distortion. This leaves us with light and shadow to work with, enabling us to push both as a final form of distortion.

What remains is a picture that is neither a representation of what the world looks like, nor an interpretation of it. The picture exists in between both perceptions of reality, yet challenges the notion that it should be dependent on one of the two.

This result becomes quite apparent when people refer to photographs as ‘feeling incredibly real’ and stating that they are drawn to images because of it. Keeping the aesthetic side of the image in mind this would almost sound illogical, but the key is in the word ‘feel’. The viewer indeed feels. Though the viewer in fact feels that the image is indeed an objective copy of reality, the viewer is subconsciously fascinated by the phenomenon of having this realness maintained through such high levels of distortion. This distortion shows that the images, although not shot with an intention apart from copying the world, are in fact still subject to the influence of a person. The reality the photographs consist of is not gone due to the distortion but amplified by it, as the distortion didn’t take place before or when the picture was shot but was in fact implemented afterwards, in a way that it places the picture between the external and internal.

For me that is the point where you can state the photographs are the work of a ‘human camera’. An apparatus of flesh and blood that has its shutter pressed by its own intuition and loses all control of what is captured, yet takes it back when given the responsibility to process it.

This is something that can only be achieved through the act of photography.

As a result, the photographs don’t serve as a document showing the reality in Manila or my interpretation of it.

They are the dust after the collision between the two.”

REALITY

VERTICAL LIMITATIONS: A STUDY ON DWARFISM

photo essay by: Soumya Chatterjee

We, human beings, are different from each other in many ways. Sometimes, being different makes us feel proud, while sometimes it becomes a stigma of life forever. One such unwanted and unexpected trauma in the lives of few is Dwarfism.

A relatively rare medical or at times a genetic hormonal disorder, Dwarfism, thrusts a wholesome burden on the life of the person suffering from it. Sadly a dwarf is often tabooed as a ‘special child’ overriding the fact that it is mainly a bone growth disorder, clinically termed as ‘Achondroplasia’. The child grows up to be a person (with a tiny physic) carrying this ‘special’ gift anywhere and everywhere they go, causing a massive and devastating hindrance to their mental upliftment. In most of the cases, they are doomed to eternal darkness of depression and lose all hope even being capable of performing better than any other ‘normal’ human being.

Luckily, a few stand out to prove that no such physical deformity can bar their success. Yes, they do succeed in life; sometimes way more than any other ‘normal’ person. They show extreme courage in taking on the challenge and be happy. Even earning small and leading a basic lifestyle, cannot wither the smile from their faces and that of their families.

Meet Sukumar Patra, whose negligible income as fishmonger along with the stigma of dwarfism has not curtailed his utmost affection for his son Subhadeep Patra, who is unfortunately carrying his father’s disease. As any other normal parent, Sukumar wants to give the best to his son. They are leading a very happy life and we wish them all the best for the way ahead.

We have come across another character Sanjoy Chowdhury, who is equally suffering from the disease like Sukumar. He is a clown by profession and is really good at it. In spite of the tremendous internal conflict in his mind and heart, he makes others laugh. He helps people forget their trouble and pain.

Although his tears are hidden deep behind his loud make up; he never stops smiling. He makes silly gestures and we laugh. Our laughter costs his extreme effort which he does whole heartedly.

We extend our heartfelt salute to these mighty hearts. We mustn’t forget that although our societal attitude sees them as too tiny to be noticed and too negligible to be recommended, they possess a gigantic self esteem and a mighty spirit which is ever ready to touch the sky. It is not very easy to live the life of a dwarf but people like Sukumar and Sanjoy have shown us that it is easier to overcome this taboo and like an over spirited dove, soar higher and higher in the vast horizon.

RITHUALS

AT 3 AM

text by: Vladimir Martinovski photo essay by: Ivan blaĹžev

“...and in a real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning, day after day. At that hour the tendency is to refuse to face things as long as possible by retiring into an infantile dream” - F. Scott Fitzgerald in “The Crack-up” Under the auspices of “SK-2014” a curious proliferation of statues, monuments and neo-classical and baroque architecture have been popping up across the Macedonian capital during the last few years. As a result of this still ongoing project, Macedonia’s capital Skopje has been built, torn apart, rebuilt, covered and masked, undergoing a facelift beyond recognition. But the facelift goes much deeper under the surface. SK-2014 is a revisionist project which has been rewriting the history of the city and it has been redefining the identity. Much debated and with strong international and local opposition, the project has been under the scrutiny of the public, but nevertheless the government continued with the project, deeply carving through the Skopje urban landscape.

“At 3 a.m.” is a personal photographic narrative of confrontation, transformation and intimate battle, documenting the trauma from the abrupt changes to the face of the city. Photographing the changing urban landscape, as well as the human landscape within it, it is an effort to make sense of the new reality, of coming to terms with the city. It is a way of exploring Skopje, finding a way through the new landscape and trying to understand its new face, its new skin and what is under it. It is not a project about documenting the change, but rather it is a project about the psychological impact of the change and a search for a sense of identity and community within the new landscape. The project represents photographer’s personal gaze into memories, changes and socio-political impact on the individual and the community.

“Ivan Blazhev’s latest black-and-white photographic adventure is at the same time wakeful, as it is disconcerting and sleep depriving. It documents the trauma from the abrupt changes to the face of the city. From time to time, it throws red pepper in our eyes with the perspectives from which it observes the city. In his suggestive and subtle photographic nocturnes, Blazhev showcases his intimate view of contemporary Skopje. Even in his “day-time” photographs, he manages to capture a sense of the night, as well as the phantasmagoric and almost nightmarish feeling that pervades.

The night setting is frequently depicted through the mild haziness of the photographed objects, while the oneiric ambience suggests that the night can be captured even with the sun in its zenith.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ivan Blažev was born in 1974 in Skopje, Macedonia. He has graduated from Brooklyn College (NYC, USA) with BA in Filmmaking and holds an MFA degree in Photography from the Academy of Arts of Novi Sad (Serbia). Works as a photographer, filmmaker and educator. He has exhibited his work at national and international museum and gallery venues. In 2008 his project Macedonia Dreaming was part of Beyond Walls – Eastern Europe after 1989 program at the Noorderlicht Photo Festival in the Netherlands. In 2011 he was featured in the exhibition Fragments: Macedonian art scene 1991 – 2011 at the Museum of Contemporary Art – Skopje. Blazhev has published five photobooks.

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