PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITION

Monday August 8^th - Thursday August 11^th, YOUTH CLUB OF IERAPETRA, 19:00 - 22:00

Photography Exhibition by the distinguished photojournalist and war correspondent Dimitris Messinis.

SARAJEVO - The Siege

The siege of Sarajevo, which 30 years ago drew the focus of distinguished photojournalist Dimitri Messinis, for EPA (European Press Photo Agency), challenges our humanity. This was the longest military siege in modern history – 1.425 days, from 5 April 1992 to 29 February 1996. The gripping photos recording the events of that siege are clear and harsh, without embellishments, with Dimitris Messinis the witness' distinctive penetration into the events and the psychological experience of desolation and bereavement.

The chronicle unfolds with the photojournalist using his capture of multifaceted human loss as his only narrative.

The depiction, in color, of the unspeakable bereavement immediately provokes the viewer's sensibility and ultimately leads them to the safe conclusion that nationalism only begets darkness.

Every human being's vital safe space, their very humanity, are in the deathly grip of an extreme dystopia.

The poisonous howls of strife set the stage for the stolen innocence, the defiled dignity, the desecrated possessions.

There is no central protagonist in the exhibition. Every depicted person is one. Masha, 29 years after her flight from Sarajevo, recognizes herself in the last picture of her father recording their parting, and tells the photojournalist, “you have liberated me!”

The devastation of the siege left 11,541 dead, 1,601 of them children, and over 50,000 wounded, 15,000 under the age of 18.

And the siege of Sarajevo may have ended shortly after, and as a result of, the 1995 Dayton Accords, but the pictorial depiction of scorched earth tactics, the vortex of civil war destruction, the human rage, the displacement, can only lead us to reflect, 30 years later, that all nationalisms simply recreate, every time, our darkest destinies.

(Review by Irene Litinas)

Friday August 12th, Ierapetra Youth Club, 20:30

• Masterclass on Street Photography, by Dimitris Messinis.