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Gopesa Paquette

Sarajevo

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This is the first part of an ongoing project on the inhabitants of Bosnia and Herzegovina who are trying to live through continued social, political and economic marginalization. BiH is one of the rare countries to be under international protectorate status. This means that there is a consortium of international institutions that holds the power to make the political and economic decisions which will mold the social fabric of the country for the coming decades. Thus considered politically immature, the inhabitants of the country are asked to prove that they are entitled to make the decisions directly impacting their everyday lives.

BiH, and more generally the Balkans, have been a geographical and conceptual bridge between Europe and Asia for centuries. From the Ottoman empire to the ex-Yugoslav quagmire by way of the Balkan wars of the early 20th century, this region has been relegated to an undefined otherness every time it seemed to threaten Western Europe’s fragile self image.

I started this project in the summer of 2007 with a 2 month stay in the capital of BiH, Sarajevo, which has been etched into our collective imagination as the epitome of collective suffering. My aim is to contribute to the reconfiguration of this infamous iconic status by showing the quotidian lives that unfold in this modestly sized city. I’m presently financing my next stay in BiH to continue this project.

Meanwhile, I’m starting to interview members of the Bosnian diaspora living in Quebec City and Montreal, Canada, hoping to get a better idea of what being Bosnian means to people on both sides of the ocean.

Bio

I am a young documentary photographer combining anthropologically grounded research into photojournalistic practices with my own photographic exploration of contemporary issues.

Presently completing a masters degree in social anthropology looking at contemporary photojournalistic practices in India, I am working on photography projects exploring differing degrees of marginalization in Quebec (Canada), Bosnia and Herzegovina and India. I’m particularly interested in border zones: the social, cultural, geographical and historical areas in-between set conceptions of the world.

My photographic reflection takes account of the whole process of image making and dissemination, looking at exploring ways of diversifying the making of images, the ways in which they are assembled and their social lives once they are put out there in the wild terrains of the contemporary mediascape.

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Gopesa Paquette