To Sarajevo where we met Remi Ourdan, founder of the WARM festival. WARM uses the arts, music and a cross-disciplinary approach to explore, commemorate and help move beyond the world’s conflicts. Remi is a renowned war reporter himself and it was a privilege to meet him and his colleagues and hear about his project. We took a look at the current WARM exhibition and saw examples of reportage from around the world.
Hearing about WARM and walking around Sarajevo, itself a recent siege city, made us realise how fortunate we have been in the UK to have had so much relative stability and calm for so long. The political complexities of the region, and indeed those of Trieste, feel as though they are several orders of magnitude greater than anything we are used to and helped us to put the current turmoil in the UK into some sort of perspective.
Previously we met Pierre Courtin, a gallerist in Sarajevo who is supporting the region’s artists through a rolling programme of exhibitions and by showing at international art fairs. His desire to bring contemporary art to his adopted city resonated with our aims for ALL and it was a very fruitful discussion.
We rounded off the day with a walk through Sarajevo and a drink at a wonderful lucky-goldfish themed bar. Only a two-hour drive back to Mostar prevented us from joining our new found friends for the closing events at WARM.
Another long and mind bogglingly interesting day…
Ps no we are not in Australia but the pictures are loading upside down.
