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Sarajevska Zima

A Festival Amid War Debris in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina

University of Auckland

The Sarajevo Winter Festival (Sarajevska Zima) has been running continuously since 1984. Remarkably, even during the 1990s war and siege the festival continued, with patrons and artists ducking sniper fire to attend events. For the tourist or foreign artist visiting Sarajevo for Sarajevska Zima, the experience is a case study of Dark Tourism. Visitors certainly know about the genocide; they saw it on television. They learnt a new term, `ethnic cleansing'. In this city the citizens endured unimaginable nightmares; addressing issues of survival is an ongoing process. At the festival the artists work in galleries and on the streets. The city environs with the numerous sprawling cemeteries of gleaming gravestones is an ever-present reminder of events in recent memory. The foreign artists' re-appropriation of public spaces demonstrates their own compassionate responses to the war experiences of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Key Words: Sarajevo • festival • war site • tourism • artists

Space and Culture, Vol. 12, No. 1, 136-142 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1206331208327441


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