Location: Photo club Split (Marmontova 5)

Dates: 7 August – 28 August 2026

The exhibition brings together photographs taken during the Siege of Sarajevo, between 1992 and 1995. At the heart of the series are children whose childhoods and everyday lives were marked by shortages of food and water, cold, injuries, and the constant fear of artillery shells and sniper fire. Kovačević, however, does not portray them solely as victims of war.

His photographs capture their need for play, closeness, and a sense of security, as well as the strength with which life continues amid the devastation of everyday life. The children make toys from objects found around the city, hold on to stuffed animals, play in the streets, or recover in hospital beds. In their eyes, the experience of violence, the immediacy of childhood, and a refusal to accept war as the only possible reality exist side by side.

The photographs from the series Children at War transcend their value as historical documents. They are deeply humanistic records of dignity, trust, and hope, as well as a testament to the unique relationship the photographer establishes with the people in front of his lens. Asja Prohić, the author of the text in the exhibition catalogue, emphasizes the strength of the bond between the photographer and the child being portrayed. The trust Kovačević manages to establish erases the boundary between photographer and subject, giving the faces captured in his photographs a sense of immediacy and uniqueness.

Milomir Kovačević Strašni was born in 1961 and began taking photographs at the age of seventeen at the CEDUS University Photo Club. From the very beginning, his work has focused on life in the streets of Sarajevo, cultural events, and the social phenomena of his time. During the Siege of Sarajevo, he photographed daily life inside the besieged city, creating an extensive and powerful visual testimony of the war, but also of the human need for order, closeness, and survival.

Since 1995, he has lived and worked in Paris. He has received numerous awards and distinctions, including the CCF Foundation Award, now known as the HSBC Award, the French knighthood for achievements in photography, and the Sixth of April Award of the City of Sarajevo, presented to him in 2016.

More information about the exhibition is available at: https://fotoklubsplit.hr/

Opening hours: Monday to Friday: 8:00 AM – 2:00 PM and 5:00 PM – 9:00 PM