Prisoners of the Landscape

Abstract

The landscape, a synonym for a vast, open world, can quickly become a claustorphobic playground of liminality. This is precisely what happened to the victims of the Bosnian war who fled Srebrenica after its downfall as a UN safe zone. While those unable to escape faced genocide – the largest in Europe after World War II – those who fled Srebrenica endured a harrowing 100 km long journey in hopes of reaching the village of Nezuk. The work explores how the landscape emotionally and functionally transforms for those involuntarily trapped in war becoming both a horrendous safe zone and a peaceful battleground. The landscape becomes the welcoming torturous place of being – the new open shelter. The work dives into the specific landscape along the path and wonders how it changes once it becomes not a mere coincided discovery, but a home for what feels to be an eternity. Simultaneously, the research consists of investigating the given landscape today, and the memory it portrays of the atrocious period, through the March of Peace, where the path is retraced annually on the anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide. Through on-site documentation and literature, the work seeks to discover the liminal aspect of the landscape and explore how it can become a tool for memory, leading to potential design interventions.