The photo series Fearless Youth is based on the eponymous unpublished autobiography of my grandfather Hasan (1928–2011), in which he recalls, among other things, his wartime trajectory during World War II. His coming of age in a Muslim village in the south of Bosnia and Herzegovina was interrupted when, following in the footsteps of his older brothers, he joined the fascist Ustasha army, in which he served from 1943 to 1945.
Retracing my grandfather’s maps and descriptions and using his book as a compass, I travelled 1800 kilometres across Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Slovenia, visiting the places he describes on that wartime route, burdened by history and marked by traumatic events. Through the act of photography, these places for me become personal monuments of our relationship, a meeting place of the past and the present.
Like an unwanted family heirloom, the past of our ancestors is passed down from generation to generation; we are born with it and carry it with us even though we have never witnessed it. By connecting archival material with landscapes and self-portraits, I intertwine personal and collective histories, thus establishing a dialogue with my grandfather’s past, which is inevitably my own, as well.
