In the exhibition Negatives Beyond the green Ismar Cirkinagic is focusing on the conflict that arose in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the beginning of the 1990’s. It was a conflict marked by ethnic cleansing and genocide, and the works of Cirkinagic are related to the traces of the ethnic cleansing that took place in the northwestern part of the country, especially around the city of Prijedo. The conflict is a part of our contemporary European history, and even to this day new mass graves and other traces of the ruthless slaughter are discovered.
In the images of these places no traces of this cruelty and evilness can be found; they are sublime pictures of beautiful landscapes and forests that do not tell the story of what happened 20 years ago. What bears witness of the horrible things that happened is instead Cirkinagic’s images of clothes and other belongings of the victims of the genocide that were found inside the mass graves. The exhibition reminds us of these events from the past, as it at the same time comments on current conflicts that are taking place in for example Syria.
Ismar Cirkinagic (1973) was born in Prijedor in former Jugoslavia, now lives and works in Copenhagen. He is educated at the Royal Danish Art Academy, and was in 2010 awarded with a three year working scholarship from the Danish Arts Foundation. Negatives beyond the green is Cirkinagic’s first solo exhibition in Sweden.