Discover the work of an artist making beautiful things from the horrors of his nation's past

By the end of the Bosnian War in 1995, an estimated 100,000 people had died in the former Yugoslavia as a result of intense combat and horrific ethnic cleansing. More than two decades on, much of the damage done to the buildings in Bosnia and Herzegovina remains as a stark reminder of its recent, bloody past. Bullet holes in brickwork aren't the only remnants of the years of carnage that shook the country at the end of the last millennium: active landmines and other munitions, along with scores of spent shells and other military detritus litter the countryside. While ordinance disposal teams are still working to recover and disarm the former, at least one artist is working hard to make something beautiful of the latter.

Kenan Hidi is a Sarajevo-based artist, whose materials of choice can be found freely throughout his country: spent artillery shells, bullet casings war trash. BalkanDiskurs recently profiled Hidi and his work (you may need Google Translate to read it, though.) In the profile, Hidi talks about his work, and the philosophy behind it. The story is accompanied by some outstanding black and white photos, shot by Armin Durgu, of Hidi at work.

Image: Fanny Schertzer - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link