Sara Terry: Artist Statement

This work is rooted in my conviction that war is only half the story, something the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina, like people who have lived through any terrible conflict, know only too well. But the aftermath of conflict is a story that often goes untold. The media, which does a very good job of covering war, rarely remains after the guns and violence and madness of conflict have finally stopped. Reporters move on to the next hot spot, and the world forgets.

"Aftermath" is about that period of time when people no longer struggle just to survive, as they do in war, but to live again, to restore lives and communities, to rebuild a civil society. This project is a reflection of my belief that the aftermath is as newsworthy as the war, if not more so, because it is the time when the human spirit is really put to the test. It is also, however, the time when the prologue to the future is being written. We ignore it at our own peril.

To explore these themes, I worked with groups of people and on crucial issues that will determine Bosnia's future: the widows of Srebrenica; the youth of Sarajevo; exhumations and identifications; areas such as Republika Srpska, where ethnic tensions still run high; and returning refugees. But in addition, I explored everyday life in Bosnia, searching for the moments and details that help illumine the promise and the contradictions of a post-conflict society.

In the course of the four years it took to make this work, I became convinced that we need post-conflict images to remind us of our humanity—to testify that war is not the final word on who we are as human beings, nor the final image of our spirit.