LIVING BEHIND BARS: What is happening behind bars and closed heavy iron doors of the prison cells? Is it like we used to see at the movies? Or not? Researching daily life of the prisoners at the famous Belgrade County Jail, you can meet and feel energy of the other dimension. Where the piece of sky above the backyard is the only freedom prisoners can see. For a long time. Belgrade County Jail is the biggest of that type at the Balkans, located couple of miles from Belgrade downtown. I was making my story at the restricted cell block called “5-1”, where prisoners are locked for 22 hours including two hours they can spend at the fresh air. Real life behind bars, as it is. Belgrade, 2014-18.
KARABURMA MY GHETTO: Some things do not look the way we want to see them. Or as they really are. They are sometimes raw, sometimes brutal, on the edge. Yet they are so true and full of life. Welcome to Karaburma, an area of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. Although located only three miles from the city’s downtown, it is a hidden place with pleasant people and restless spirit, a place of great social diversity and a high crime rate. No wonder it was named “Little Columbia”. I was documenting the aesthetic of Karaburma’s street life for five years, trying to capture and present visual emotions of this part of Belgrade. Welcome to my personal Bronx. Belgrade, 2014- 19.
TRAPPED: Since 2014. over a million of refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan passed through Belgrade, trying to reach new life in some of the EU countries. They passed so called “Balkan route”, included Greece, Macedonia and Serbia. A couple of thousands of them remained in Serbia trapped, hiding in various shelters and rat holes, organized their life in a very poor and dehumanized conditions. They refuse to stay in the camps, already overbooked by refugees. Belgrade, 2015 – 21.
INVISIBLE CHILDREN OF BELGRADE: “Juniors – the invisible children of Belgrade” is a series about kids living and working at the streets. Shows some of them in their early days and portray some of survivors in their late age. Growing up at the streets, outside the control of their parents or under their torture, outside institutions and with the wrong authorities, ideal for the formation of crime genic personalities and the path that is rarely followed. The series started in 2013 and is still ongoing.
STREET LIFE IN KNIN: Knin is small, half dead and abandoned town in Northern Dalmatia, a place were started and ended civil war in Croatia from 1991-95. Former capital of rebelled Serbs before they were defeat by Croatian army. And my hometown. Focus of this photo essay is how street photography can be used in such cities from anthropologic perspective. Knin, 2013-21.
SUBVERSIVE STREET AESTHETICS: “Subversive Street Aesthetics” – is a visually anthropologically conceived trilogy of transformation and deformation of Belgrade streets documented through quarterly periods. ‘Once subversion has occurred, nothing can stop it” is a piece of wisdom which best defines the dominant state of consciousness in this region for the last two and a half decades – a constant vortex of feedback dangerously slapping against clear conscience and consciousness at their last gasps. Woven together from a series of schizophrenic moments, the street aesthetics of Belgrade never fails to surprise us with another, different dimension of its bottom. Belgrade, 2013 and ongoing.