Art Collection Telekom Presents: Sejla Kameric Discusses the Trauma of War

by Max Dax

“…One of your key pieces, Bosnian Girl, is a self portrait, and there’s a line written over it that reads, “No teeth…? A moustache…? Smel like shit…? Bosnian Girl!” [sic] I understand that this insulting sentiment was written on a wall by Dutch UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR) soldiers—not by the Serbians, who were attacking the city.

In 2003, my photographer friend Tarik Samarah was one of the first journalists who was allowed to visit the Factory in Potocari that was used as a UNPROFOR barracks near Srebrenica, another city that was under siege during the war. After the fall of Srebrenica, refugees came to seek shelter in the UN base. But, unfortunately, the UN soldiers were outnumbered and didn’t know how to handle the situation. They basically couldn’t even protect themselves, not to mention all the people who needed help. So, after the fall of the city, this factory and former UN base was used as a concentration camp. More than 8,300 Bosnian men and boys were executed by Serbian forces there—the massacre of Srebrenica.

When Tarik went there in 2003, he found and photographed a lot of evidence of what had happened there, among them graffiti done by the Dutch UN soldiers. Most of this offensive graffiti showed how unprepared and inadequate UN troops were. They were just young boys and probably very frightened themselves. Among those I found Bosnian Girl graffiti that used for my piece.If there were a lot of examples of graffiti like this, why did you pick that particular one?

That one was particularly important to me because of the crimes committed against women during the war and prejudices that we were confronted during and after it. I basically had to write it on myself, I had to carry it along with me. By putting it directly on my image, I made sure it would be confrontational, especially in light of the massacres. And I wanted to shine a light on the third party in the conflict, the UN soldiers…”