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Reception of the Children's exhibit: Silent witness-Serbian life through a child's eyes

The exhibit opened on Friday, Oct. 9, 2009, in the Gallery of the Washington School of Photography in Bethesda, Maryland. Organized by RAS - The International Serbian Organization, and the Washington School of Photography, a premier school of photography in the Washington Metropolitan area, this exhibit presents photographs made by the Serbian children who live in the southern Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija.

Hundreds of Serbian children, together with thousands of adults, live behind barbed wires, in concentration camp conditions and in constant fear for their lives and the lives of their families in today's Kosovo.

They represent a minority in the southern province of Serbia, whose, now majority, Albanian Muslim population, after many decades of terror and destruction against everything Serbian in this Serbian province, proclaimed independence in February 2009.

Despite unceasing attempts to eradicate all traces of the Serbian people and their culture, and despite the fact that Serbians are still fleeing the province in large numbers, there are families and individuals who have nowhere to go and who, in fact, are the guarantors  of the future of Serbia in Kosovo. The most important of these are the Serbian children there. 

They seem helpless and hopeless. However, through the generous donation of the Washington School of Photography,  9 of those children received digital camera to record their daily lives. Through their photographs, the lives of the Serbian children in Kosovo are now seen, vividly and movingly. Hundreds of the exhibit's viewers who saw the photographs on Friday, and many more that will see them in the future, testify that these kids are not alone any more behind the barbed wires surrounding them.

At the opening reception, the guests, many as unfamiliar with the Serbian culture as they were about the life of the children there, had an opportunity to learn about the long Serbian tradition by viewing the exhibited traditional folk costumes, as well as by tasting Serbian traditional dishes and desserts, recipes for both of which were available and widely distributed.

The exhibit will remain open at the Bethesda location until November 3, 2009, when it will begin its journey, first in the US, and then abroad. The next host of this exhibit will be the city of Chicago.

October 9, 2009

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