Macedonia

Portraits of children from different ethnic communities in Macedonia are paired with landscapes from the same country. Made during a three-month visit in 2003, the photographs consider childhood in the aftermath of armed conflict. The children include ethnic Macedonians, Albanians and Roma, with the latter also bearing the experience of the war in Kosovo. Their ages range from four to fourteen. Rather than depicting fighting, the sequence places individual faces alongside views of fields, hills and woodland. The landscapes emphasise light, time and stillness rather than identifying particular locations. Portraits and landscapes share the spreads, bringing the children and their surroundings into a single visual sequence. A gatefold interrupts this arrangement with further portraits, smaller family photographs and a short essay by Paul Andriesse. Designed by SYB, the book can be approached from either cover, with vertical portraits in one direction and horizontal landscapes in the other.