Journal Article

Exhibiting loss and salvaging the everyday: Photography, objects and the missing

Martine Hawkes

2014

Overview

By the end of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, which took place between 1991 and 1997 and resulted in the deaths of at least one hundred and thirty thousand people, an estimated 22,438 people were unaccounted for. Their whereabouts were unknown and their remains were missing. By 2013, the fate of 14,552 of these individuals had been clarified with 7,886 people still missing. The clarification of the fate of the missing is a fundamental component of transitional justice processes. Taking as its focus two photographic projects - one with forensic identification purposes and the other with a memorialisation focus - this article will explore the juridical and memorialisation contexts in which these photographs circulate, asking how photographs might be, on the one hand, practical tools for the identification of remains, but also, at the same time, act as visual vehicles for raising awareness and action around the broader justice questions concerning the clarification of the fate of the missing.

• Publisher: Melbourne University Publishing
• Subject: Criminal procedure / Exhibitions / Fairs & exhibitions / Identification / Identification photographs / Missing persons / Photography / Social aspects