ALMIN ZRNO PHOTOGRAPHY

Almin Zrno is widely recognized as one of the most influential photographers in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Born in 1966 in Sarajevo, remote from the world centers of photography, Zrno early discovered his love for photography and joined the renown photo club CEDUS, where he got introduced to the magical world of his future profession. He soon began showing his artwork in number of joint exhibitions organized in ex-Yugoslavia and at the age of 17 received his first award for best photograph at the state level competition.

Turbulent teenage years and the Bosnian war in the early 90's war kept him away from photography for a period of ten years.

In 1996 he continued to pursue his career, working mainly in the field of journalistic photography as the head of photo department for two local newspapers. This resulted with two awards for best published photograph, awarded to him by the Association of Journalists of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In year 2000 he became a member of Association of Applied Artists and Designers of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 2001 he created one of his first memorable works. Photograph "Mother of Srebrenica" potrayes anonymous woman from Srebrenica, for which a great painter Safet Zec stated that through it he understood all the pain and sorrow of Srebrenica genocide. For this photograph, Zrno received his first out of six awards for best photograph of the year, awarded by the Association of Applied Artists and Designers of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In 2003 he organized his first solo exhibition "STAGE" in Art Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He slowly began to move away from journalistic photography and turned to other ways of expression, primarily nude and potrait photography. As the official photographer of Sarajevo Film Festival, he had the chance to portray some of the most prominent names of film industry such as Jeremy Irons, Mike Leigh and Rade Šerbedžija.

At the same time, he followed all the events regarding development of museum of contemporary art Ars Aevi in Sarajevo that gathers most significant names of contemporary art scene of the world. As a part of the team, he photo documented some of the most significant exhibitions that were at that time organized. As a result of that engagement, he started working on his first monograph "Vijećnica", published in 2015.

In the past few years, Zrno minimized his participation in commercial photography and got more focused on creating nude and fine art photography. Through it, he attempts to tell a story that ails the world inside of him.

He currently presides the Association of Applied Artists and Designers of Bosnia and Herzegovina and is an active figure in the cultural scene of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

About Almins Art Work

"Almin Zrno knows exactly what he is doing. His photographic documentation of three exhibitions set up at the Vijećnica, exhibitions by three great artists, Jannis Kounellis, Edo Murtić and Braco Dimitrijević, is a parable about the siege and the war, their legacy and reconstruction that followed, told through the sensual zooming in and out from the building that in the consciousness of humanity sublimated the totality and senselessness of the planned destruction of Sarajevo. When a story such as his flows from the beginning to end smoothy, clearly and precisely, when the thousands of words emanating from each photograph tell with calm and dignity the cruel and magnificent accounts of human greatness and human misery, of rising from the ashes and the ever necessary hope that ultimately humanity will prevail, when the author gradually disappears from our mental horizon because we become so immersed in this message that it seems like our own, then we have entered the space of empathy, the commonality of emotion, thinking and intuition, and we know exactly what he means to tell us."
Branko Franceschi (Art Historian, Director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Split)

"Almin Zrno's monograph, through its pictorial content and inner dramaturgy and composition, appears like a fine, silent music of the old masters."
mr. sci. Gradimir Gojer (Theater director, actor and author, Sarajevo)

"One photograph from Srebrenica- photograph of a woman with stoned face- deprives the ability of speech to its viewer. That photograph, made by Almin Zrno, like no other photograph or discourse, reflects only the unspeakable about Srebrenica... The woman in the photograph is a living person- but everything we call life has abandoned her. She is just a mere remainder of ephemeral and material world. Even her clothes are materially literal, where forms of decoration and print dominate, just like the deep and tense lines dominate her utterly shriveled face. Her life has collapsed and immersed into her. Immersed are all the feelings, pain, thoughts and with them each sound and light of the outside world- that woman is no longer there. The viewer discovers horror, that becomes his own: „Woman with binded head scarf, with stoned face, has no eyes...“ In her, in her world, there is no light, it can no longer reach her. The entire world, the entire life, has collapsed and immersed, it faded inside that woman, her interior. Outside of her, the world is washed with Sun, the light. On her wrinkled face, the Sun leaves traces of light and creates rugged shadows. The woman's head is slightly leaned backwards, facing holiness of the sky, exposed to the Sun that will not help her this time. That numb movement abolished the time. Possible terrifying conclusion is the desire of this woman to dissappear, to vanish and be gone... As interpreted by the holy books about the unutterable, the World was created by light. The World that is dying on the face of this woman becomes blind and submerges into eternal darkness. The entire World has gathered into empty orbits of one woman from Srebrenica, and inside them lost its light.“
prof. dr. Fehim Hadžimuhamedović (Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts of University of Sarajevo)