Text by Tim Butcher

“Your images got me thinking. I got a strong feeling when looking at those Bosnia scenes that I was looking through tear-stained eyes, the vaporous nature of the focus, the ‘there but not there’ sense of detail. It was as if the image captured the filter of grief and terror felt by so many when trying to visualise the terrain around Srebrenica, the natural reaction to create a barrier between the viewer and the horror. I found that extraordinarily powerful; as if you the photographer, as it were, carried some of the emotional burden of bearing witness to genocide. Yet it was at the same time uplifting, encouraging even. No matter the instant when tears flow, when the view swims, the detail blurs, the one certainty is that those tears will eventually stop flowing, they will dry, emotion will ease. So I took comfort from your art in that it reminded me of the beauty below, the natural beauty that will one day remain, an eternal beauty that has the power to restore, to overcome the corruption of a genocidal instant.”

Tim Butcher 2022

Tim Butcher is an English best-selling author and broadcaster and was a war correspondent for the UK Daily Telegraph. He covered the Balkan war and the Srebrenica genocide extensively.