Yutopislavia — Olja Triaška Stefanović.. Published by Academy of Fine Arts and Design.
The importance of the Balkans is too often ignored by those outside the region. Born in present-day Serbia, Stefanovic moved to Bratislava, Slovakia after the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s. Yutopislavia is her second book looking back to her childhood in Yugoslavia. The Non-Alignment Movement was an international cooperative ratified in Belgrade in 1961, and is perhaps one of the most interesting legacies of Yugoslavia. The Non-Alignment Movement attempted to unify many formerly colonized nations by rejecting the Cold War binaries of East v. West. Yutopislavia integrates Stefanovic's photographs with archival materials and provides an interesting look at Yugoslavia, presented as both a personal and cultural history. The book is beautifully designed and full of surprises.
Brian Arnold is a photographer, writer, and translator based in Ithaca, NY. His work is included in museums and archives around the world, including the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, the George Eastman Museum, the National Gallery of Australia, and the Indonesian Visual Arts Archive. Brian has authored three books on photography and is currently developing his fourth, Something About YU: Essays on Photography in Serbia and Yugoslavia.
Photo by Geoff Berliner of the Penumbra Foundation