BH UK Network , in collaboration with Scottish artist Chris Leslie, organized a virtual book launch and discussion titled A Balkan Journey . The book is a visual arts project in the form of an exhibition and book of photographs and essays, along with interactive international and local events. Chris Leslie took us on a photographic journey through the cities of the post-conflict former Yugoslavia in this extensive and previously unseen 24-year archive from the region.
Chris Leslie has won two Bafta Scotland awards. He graduated in psychology with a degree in politics in 1996, writing his final thesis on the wars in the former Yugoslavia. He became, as he says, “obsessed” (in a healthy way) with all things Balkan, and spent the rest of the year volunteering in a small social reconstruction project in Pakrac; a small war-torn town in Croatia. The war was over, but the city remained divided and ninety percent destroyed. It was there that he first picked up a camera to document his surroundings. 
The following year, in 1997, he continued volunteering in Sarajevo, where he set up himself a makeshift darkroom, using donated photographic equipment. He taught a photography class in the basement of the main orphanage in the city. He taught children, ages six to sixteen, basic photography techniques – shooting with 35mm SLR cameras, developing their films and printing photos. The focus was on the project and children’s photos.
The virtual presentation and discussion was also attended by H.E. Vanja Filipović, Ambassador of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the United Kingdom, as well as Samir Mehanović and Susan Stretton. H.E. Filipović expressed his desire to support this virtual event because he knows that art, and especially art related to the Balkans, should be nurtured and presented. He arrived in the city on the Thames, thanks to his education in England and work in important positions in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Samir Mehanović is a Bosnian director, producer and screenwriter. He has been living in Great Britain since 1995, where he won the BAFTA award for the short film The Way We Played and a special jury award at IDFA for The Mist of Srebrenica . In 2014, he shot, directed and produced Silent War Bekaa Valley . Today he lives in Scotland, but he was born and grew up in the working class village of Ši Selo in Tuzla.
Susan Stretton is already known to the Bosnian diaspora in the UK, as the director of the charity “Healing Hands Network”. Twice a month she sent therapists to the Bosnian House in Birmingham, who came from different parts of the UK with the aim of helping Bosnians and Herzegovinians. However, this has been postponed for the time being due to the coronavirus situation. The organisation has also been operating in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina since 1997, sending volunteer therapists free of charge to treat people suffering from the physical and emotional consequences of the Balkan war.
This collection shows his earliest photographs from the war-torn Croatian city in 1996, all the way to today’s Sarajevo, a city of refugees and migrants trapped in limbo. 2020. This year marks a quarter of a century since the end of the conflict, but the region and Europe continue to struggle with conflicting ideologies . The book A Balkan Journey provides a penetrating insight into the human stories behind one of the most influential periods of modern European history. Collaborating with writer John McDougall, the project will include an exhibition at Glasgow’s SOGO gallery, a book of photographs and accompanying backgrounds and stories, seven public events in Scotland and Sarajevo, as well as a website and social media campaign. The book and website include a Bosnian/Croatian translation.
You can view the online program of the virtual book presentation via the link: https://fb.watch/4JjPQuUY5n/
The book is available for purchase at the following link:
http://www.balkanjourney.com/about-balkan-journey/
