There are many stories told about what happened in Bosnia in the 1990s, and as many versions of the stories as there were victims.

The photographer Matt Lutton speaks of “segregated schools where Croats go in the morning and Serbs in the afternoon, each using a different set of textbooks which tell a different version of what should be considered a common history.”

Mr. Lutton, 26, lives in Belgrade. He has spent the last three years photographing in the countries that once constituted Yugoslavia, exploring the legacy of their recent violent history. He believes there are profound lessons to be learned.

“When we look in history, Bosnia is going to be the place where we will have the most regrets over what happened,” Mr. Lutton said. “Because of the impotence of the international presence, bad things happened on both sides of the conflict. And the first genocide in Europe since the Holocaust happened under the United Nations’ watch.”

This month marks the 15th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, when more than 7,000 Muslim men and boys were rounded up and executed by Bosnian Serb forces. On June 10, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, a U.N. court of law at the Hague, convicted two Bosnian Serb security officers of genocide and sentenced them to life in prison for their roles at Srebrenica.

Matt Lutton

Though Mr. Lutton was in elementary school when the massacre occurred, he has been able to photograph its effects in dramatic and subtle ways. He documented the reburial of victims whose remains had been found in a mass grave. At the same time, his pictures of everyday life reflect the long shadows that are still cast by the conflict.

As memories of the events in Bosnia fade for much of the world, Mr. Lutton continues to photograph there. He is working on a project called “This Time Tomorrow,” a title that alludes to the “political and economic stagnation gripping Bosnia, and the seeming procrastination by locals and internationals toward making progressive and systematic change.”

“I see a sense of resignation to entrenched political and ethnic divisions reflected in Bosnian society,” Mr. Lutton said, “and this is reflected strongly in the pictures. But beyond this melancholy, I also want to show the untold beauty of the land and share my love of this country many in the West only know about through the lens of war.”



Besides “This Time Tomorrow,” Mr. Lutton is working on a project about the Roma people, “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere.” He blogs on Dvafoto, with M. Scott Brauer.