Photographer Simic to discuss work tonight

Displayed on the walls of Blueline Media Productions is a story about one city’s strife.
It is not a story written in words, it is told with a Nikon D-700.

Photojournalist Alen Simic, an IU alumnus, traveled to his native land of Bosnia to capture photos of Sarajevo. The capital city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo was the site of a lengthy siege and genocide.

Simic will give a lecture at 7 today at Blueline. It’s the second talk he has given about his work at the gallery.

The photo gallery presents the city of Sarajevo and the people there who are dealing with the aftermath of war. His photos have been on display at the gallery since Feb. 7 and will be there until March 22.

“I had never been there since my family had left,” Simic said.

His family fled to Germany following the start of the conflict in Bosnia.

One challenge he mentioned was editing his photos into a presentation for Blueline.

Simic  started with thousands of photographs, which he said he narrowed down to 200 of his favorites and eventually to the 29 that now hang in the gallery.

Upon arriving in Bosnia on his trip to take the photos, Simic said he discovered his cab driver was willing to serve as a guide to the city.

“I had to fashion a photo story from paper and string, basically,” Simic said.

One photo Simic has on display shows a woman pointing at a photo of a soldier. Simic said she was a victim of the siege of Sarajevo.

“That woman, her entire family was killed in the war,” Simic said. “She was raped, by, I think, 14 men.”

After Simic interviewed her, he discovered she now is part of an organization that helps bring justice to women who have suffered from the misdeeds of war.

“She is sort of pointing out the man who had done all those horrible things to her,” Simic said.

Some photos show the vastness of Sarajevo’s landscape. Decrepit buildings that once served soldiers in the war are shown among newer buildings reaching  to the sky.

“I was very happy to introduce people to a part of the world that I think is really under appreciated,” Simic said. “I think it is a beautiful city.”

Chelsea Sanders, owner of Blueline, said the artist’s talk for Simic’s exhibit was very successful.

An artist talk is an event where Blueline allows the artist to discuss his or her work with spectators.

“We thought his story was really powerful,” Sanders said. “We had people from Louisville (Ky.) come up, people from Cincinnati, and they strictly came to Bloomington for this artist talk.”

He hopes within the next year to go back to Sarajevo and shoot more photos. His intention is to publish his photos in a book.

Simic mentioned IU professor Jim Kelly who once told him a photographer’s duty is to shoot the story that is there.

“That is infinitely more interesting than anything you could have come up with ahead of time,” Simic  said.