Evon O. Imperfect Light

Remembering Srebrenica

Sarajevo
I turned a corner and walked straight into a wound.
Not one still bleeding – but one kept visible, like a scar that insists on being seen.

This mural doesn’t whisper.
It speaks loudly in white, black, and green – the colours of remembrance, of grief, of survival.
The flower is a Srebrenica daisy – each petal a life, a name, a prayer for what should never have happened and must never be forgotten.

What moved me was not just the message,
but its placement:
on the skin of a living city,
above a restaurant, beside windows,
between trams and errands.
Grief, in Bosnia, walks with you. It has a postal code.
It asks nothing but that you don’t look away.

This image is not only part of Imperfect Light—
It is a promise:
That I, too, will remember.
Not only the tragedy,
but the strength it took to keep
blooming in its aftermath.

This post is part of the “Imperfect Light” series – you can read the introduction here.

Evon O. Imperfect Light

Inat Kuća – The House of Spite, Sarajevo

Inat Kuća – Spite House

I didn’t take this photograph because the building was beautiful – though it is. I took it because of the story it carries.

This is Inat Kuća, the “House of Spite” – a name born from defiance. When the Austro-Hungarian authorities planned to build the City Hall across the river, a stubborn houseowner refused to move unless they relocated his house, brick by brick, to the other side. They did. And he watched it rise from across the Miljačka, his spite immortalized in wood and stone.

I was drawn to the green bay window jutting out like a jawline, unbothered and proud. The sun carved shadows across its face, as if underlining the house’s character. I didn’t edit those lines away. I wanted the grit. The texture. The unapologetic presence.

In that moment, the house reminded me of Bosnia itself: unyielding, poetic, and full of stories that begin with resistance and end in resilience.

This post is part of the “Imperfect Light” series – you can read the introduction here.

Evon O. Imperfect Light

Vječna vatra – The Eternal Flame, Sarajevo

Vječna vatra – The Eternal Flame

I stood before the flame and couldn’t move.

It flickered not with fury, but with memory. The wind teased it, the traffic rushed behind me, but the fire held steady – unyielding, quiet, alive. Just like Sarajevo.

This is the Vječna vatra, the Eternal Flame, lit in 1946 to honour the liberators of the city after Wolrd War II. The inscription behind it speaks of unity – of Bosniaks, Croats, Serbs, Jews, and all who fought side by side. It’s a language of defiance and remembrance, written in stone and fire.

I took this photo not just to document a monument, but to preserve a moment: the tenderness of the wilted flowers, the scarred marble, they way the flame dared to glow even in daylight. In a city that has known both liberation and siege, this flame speaks a truth beyond politics.

It says:

We remember.

We endure.

We remain.

This image is a tribute to Sarajevo’s layered soul – burned, but not broken. And to the quiet fire that survives in every Bosnian heart.

This post is part of the “Imperfect Light” series – you can read the introduction here.

Evon O. Imperfect Light

A Love Letter to Bosnia & Herzegovina

Moody, oil painting of Bascarsija in Sarajevo.

The story behind “Imperfect Light: Where Light Survived/Gdje je svjetlost preživjela”

To those who call this land home, and to those who carry its memory—

I am not Bosnian.

I did not grow up with the stories of this 
land etched into my family’s walls. 
I did not lose a home here.
I did not survive the war.

But when I came to Bosnia & Herzegovina 
in the spring of 2024, 
something inside me stirred—
something quiet and immediate, as if I 
had finally arrived somewhere that had
been waiting for me all along.

I did not come here to take.
I came to listen.

The photographs made in this series were made entirely on my iPhone – not as a statement, but as a reflection of how I see: simply, instinctively, and with whatever I have in my hands.

The poems were written afterward, not to explain the images, but to honour what they left unsaid.

This project is not a documentary.  It is not a political statement.
It is, quite simply, a love letter – written
in light that was imperfect,
in silence that still echoes,
in awe that still lingers.

To the people of Bosnia & Herzegovina:
If I have gotten anything wrong, I
welcome your correction.
If I have touched anything sacred, I hope
it was with care.
And if I have honoured even one memory—
Then this project has meant something.

Thank you for letting me see your country – and feel it.

Over the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing pieces from Imperfect Light – photo by photo, poem by poem.

Each one is a fragment of memory, a moment of stillness, a love letter written in shadow and survival.

If you’d like to walk this journey with me, you can subscribe below or explore the archive at your own pace.

Thank you for reading with an open heart.