Wednesday, January 15, 1997
ART:
Life in war-torn city on display in photos at the Kerckhoff
galleryBy Alicia Cheak
Daily Bruin Contributor
Photographic images capture a single moment in life, but they
also tell stories about the people and places they depict.
Photographs become a sort of still-life documentary, allowing
viewers to witness some of history’s most painful and triumphant
periods.
"Survival in Sarajevo," a traveling exhibit making a stop at the
Kerckhoff Art Gallery, is a 20-piece showcase of American
photojournalist Edward Serotta’s work. Taken in black and white,
Serotta presents a romantic skyline of the war-torn city, but
brings his point home with the faces and actions of the people
living in it.
"The city is very beautiful from a distance," says Amy Burnham,
co-director of UCLA’s Cultural Affairs Committee. But the
fairy-tale glow from afar contrasts the severity of events within
the city.
Burnham is working with Hillel, UCLA’s Jewish organization, to
bring to light the efforts of Sarajevo’s Jews in helping a city
besieged. The exhibit shows the "efforts of survival," as Serotta
himself puts it, amidst destruction.
Serotta has seen these efforts firsthand. He visited Sarajevo
twice in the 1980s and returned three more times during the siege.
His collection of photographs have now traveled from Tel Aviv to
Germany, Holland, France and the United States promoting awareness
for the city and its people. Although the exhibit is especially
pertinent to the Jewish community at UCLA, those involved hope the
message is universal.
"I heard by word of mouth from the United Jewish Appeal that the
photos were very powerful and that they told the story very well,"
says Jessica Teisch, program director at Hillel.
Perhaps most powerful of all are images of citizens flocking to
help those in need. Some of the photographs show how 2.6 million
prescriptions were given out, free, by three community pharmacies,
and how a local first-aid clinic has catered to 2,500 patients.
They portray people bringing hope and relief through works such as
volunteering with La Benevolencia, the community’s humanitarian
society, to distribute food.
But actions are not the only images. Several pictures depict
teary-eyed Sarajevans as they mourn individual losses, while
another shows a stern-faced Muslim woman visiting a doctor. The
poignancy of Serotta’s work lies in the faces of individuals he
came across in his time in Sarajevo.
Fear, pain and hope are all prominent emotions in Serotta’s
photographs. "You see that some who have died are not much older
than we are," Burnham says, referring to a photograph of a grave
site. The headstone shows that the person she refers to was 21.
"(The exhibit) shows the kinds of conditions the Sarajevo Jews
were living in," Teisch explains. The pictures, taken in 1994, take
viewers into the quiet home of Dr. Wagman and his wife as they
prepare for the cold night by burning wood in their stove. They
also show another kind of residence  people in the Jewish
Joint Distribution Committee using convoy buses to take people out
of Sarajevo. One woman wears a hesitant smile while a young boy
looks tearfully out the bus window.
"(Serotta) has the ability to capture everyday images," Burnham
says, though the portraits of Sarajevo go far beyond the
everyday.
ART: "Survival in Sarajevo" is on display at the Kerckhoff Art
Gallery through Friday. There is a reception from 5 to 6 p.m.
today.
Kerckhoff Art Gallery
"Survival in Sarajevo," a photojournalist’s series of shots
portraying life in the war-torn city, is on display this week at
Kerckhoff Art Gallery.Kerckhoff Art Gallery
Edward Serotta’s photos depict life in Sarajevo.