23–24.02 ’24
Workshop Subjective Atlas of Bosnia & Herzegovina
🕐 23-24 February 2024
📍 Ethno Village Čardaci, Vitez (BiH)
🔗 balkandiskurs.com
🙏🏻 PCRC team, James Riding
In the heart of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the small town of Vitez, young people gathered to learn about preserving peace, coexistence, and tolerance. They were part of the Peace Festival organised by the Post-Conflict Research Center (PCRC), who, in turn, invited us to host a Subjective Atlas workshop.
We asked the participants of the Peace Festival 2024 in Vitez how they would map their country from their perspective; would that be the geographical borderlines, or would they see their environment through a very different lens? They illustrated their perspectives, titled them, framed their view, and shared their narratives with the group.
Additionally, we asked the participants what alternative flag they could imagine for their country, again, from their perspective, and what name they would give their flag. Colourful variations that incited moving narratives were displayed.
After these imaginations, the group further unpacked their perspectives on the country with proposals for mapping the social, cultural, and political phenomena they were engaged with. We heard them speak on the fragmented train network, the level of bureaucracy, two schools under one roof, folkloric dances, the role of nature, and how Rakija is communally made. Many worked on their contribution after the workshop to include their layers in the Subjective atlas of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Impression
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PCRC & Subjective Editions, 2025
Bosnian-English, 192 full-colour pages, 16.5 x 22 cm
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The Subjective Atlas of Bosnia and Herzegovina brings together over eighty personal mappings from people living in a country long defined by outsiders—reduced to entities, ethnic categories, and wartime narratives. This atlas counters such simplifications with a polyphonic cartography: visual stories that show how people inhabit, remember, and imagine this place today.
Created through participatory workshops across Bosnia and Herzegovina, the contributions use drawing, collage, and photography to create alternative mappings of a conflict affected state. Rather than offering a fixed or objective account, these situated mappings aim to feel the country—through the materialities of war-damaged buildings, the taste of homemade juices, and the joy of small acts of kindness.
In a landscape where trauma lingers and political inertia persists, this publication opens space for critical imagination. It invites us to see Bosnia and Herzegovina not as divided, but as a layered place of entangled histories and resilient futures—mapped from within.
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ISBN 978-9-46444-802-3
This publication is a result of a collaboration between Subjective Editions, Newcastle University and PCRC
Editor-in-Chief: Annelys de Vet (Subjective Editions)
Editorial support: Sana Gobbeh, Anita Karabašić, Paul Lowe, Tatjana Milovanović, Ivana Perić, Theresa Rauch, James Riding, Velma Šarić, Amina Sejfić
Foreword: Velma Šarić
Introduction: James Riding