An exhibition by Ismar Čirkinagić

National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina

November 13, 2022 – January 13, 2023

The project is based on the traditional way of making an herbarium and classifying flora, with the difference that the plants were collected on mass graves around Prijedor in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“Herbarium” by Ismar Čirkinagić is exhibited in Bosnia and Herzegovina for the first time. It is an incredible work of art reflecting on the legacy of war and violence that Kuma International was honored to support and promote.

“My name is Ismar Čirkinagić and I work with visual arts. I was born in Prijedor, at that time Yugoslavia, in 1973. In the autumn of 1992, I left for Denmark. Now I live between Prijedor and Copenhagen. In April 2022 I started working on this latest version of Herbarium. I collected the last plants in August and made 70 pieces specifically for the exhibition at the National Museum in Sarajevo that will open 30 years after the war started.

Thirty years is not a little time. We are still living in the war in many ways. There are still traces of the war around us; we are still looking for bodies of people missing, discussing certain topics. There is, again, a new cycle of nationalism. We obviously didn’t leave those demons from the past behind. It is nice to know that the work will be shown in Bosnia and Herzegovina for the first time since I started working on this project eighteen years ago”.

VII Academy promoted the exhibition in collaboration with Kuma International, Zemaljski muzej Bosne i Hercegovine, Festival MESS, Ars Aevi Museum of Contemporary Art, and Danish Arts Council.

Learn more about Herbarium by watching this video by Jasmin Brutus: