The Spot Gallery and the Office for Photography invite you to the opening of the exhibition as part of the program line “Young SPOTs” dedicated to young authors. The opening of the exhibition Dear Orchid by the artist Hana Selena Sokolović will be held on Tuesday, April 7th 2026 at 7:00 p.m., and the conversation with the author will start at 7:30 p.m. The exhibition will remain open until Wednesday, April 15th 2026.
Hana Selena Sokolović, from the series”Dear Orchid”, 2025
There are family stories that are never spoken aloud, but are passed on through glances, fragments of sentences, and the objects that remain. One such story belongs to the family of artist Hana Selena Sokolović and is told in an unusual way: through a diary written in a child’s handwriting. Dear Orchid is not an attempt to reconstruct the past, but an artwork born of a personal need to better understand family history and the experiences that, in the most difficult moments, shaped the family’s identity.
The work takes as its starting point the diary of the artist’s older sister, written from spring 1992 to winter 1993, during the war in Sarajevo. From the perspective of an 11-year-old girl, it strings together entries about shelling and fear, but also about the landscapes she noticed while traveling, and the songs playing on the radio during their journey. Today, that manuscript remains the only preserved trace of that period in their family. There are no photographs, and the family archive begins and ends with words.
The void in the family archive – marked by the absence of photographs and fragmentary testimony from family members – is the point of departure for this work. Guided by her sister’s diary, the artist retraces the route her mother and sisters traveled during the war years. The journey becomes a bridge between past and present, between inherited memory and personal experience. Although the original work includes film, animated drawings, diary reproductions, and a photobook, the exhibition at the Spot Gallery presents selected fragments that offer no final resolution, leaving the story open-ended.
Living in post-war Serbia, the artist observes how memories of the war are shaped through selective remembrance and forgetting. In this context, the personal act of remembering becomes a subtle form of resistance to collective amnesia. The work does not seek to provide a definitive truth; instead, it takes responsibility for inherited silences and opens a space for reflection.
Dear Orchid tells the story not only of a single family, but of identity taking shape through all that’s been lost, left unspoken, and never written down. It reminds us that any confrontation with the past is also an act of the present.
Ivona Hlanuda
Hana Selena Sokolović, from the series”Dear Orchid”, 2025
Hana Selena Sokolović is a visual artist and researcher working with photography, moving image, text, and archival materials. Originally from Belgrade, she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Photography and New Media from the Film and TV Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU) in 2021, and is currently completing her Master’s degree in Photography & Society at the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) in The Hague.
Her practice navigates the emotional and political legacies of conflict, displacement, and inherited memory, particularly within the post-Yugoslav context. She explores how personal and collective histories shape identity, belonging, and political agency, often working in the space between documentary and conceptual approaches. Her work engages with affective states such as grief, care, and powerlessness as tools for rethinking ethical responsibility, and reflects a sustained interest in the politics of visibility, silence, and remembrance. Sokolović has exhibited her work in Prague, including in group shows such as Memoria Skopje (2022) and Final FOTO FAMU (2021). Alongside her artistic practice, she has worked with children in educational and socially engaged contexts, which continues to inform her people-centered and collaborative approach to image-making.
