‘The Visible Mountain’ — Trebević's scarred, sacred landscape

For over a year in 2011, Camilla de Maffei, explored Trebević, Sarajevo’s sacred, scarred mountain, to determine how the trauma of the Balkan wars still manifests in Trebevićs landscape and Sarajevans’ psyches. At one time, Trebević was a leisure destination, hallowed for its wilderness, linked directly to Sarajevo’s city center by cable car and site of astronomy observatories and the 1984 winter Olympics. Then came the catastrophe of the Balkan wars of the ’90s.

Working with anthropologist Caterina Borelli, Camilla interviewed Sarajevans, took pictures, collected archival photos and gradually developed a thesis about the mountain and its relationship to Sarajevans: That soil and forest, ruins and memory, and hope and denial speak to one another. Its specific social geography points both to the pain of conflict’s death and destruction, and to the desires of Sarajevo’s citizens to put the past behind them. (Anna Van Lenten)

‘The Visible Mountain’ by Camilla de Maffei exhibition opening, slideshow and discussion led by writer and editor Anna Van Lenten on April 12, 2016, at 7:30 p.m., are part of the ongoing The Half King Photography Series in New York City. The exhibit is on view through May 23, 2016.

Find more news-related photo galleries on the Yahoo News Photo Tumblr!