Burning Down the House Cenotaph V
“So I chose the place where I wanted to live, but I have also chosen the language I wanted to speak.”
Vera Linhartova, from Encounter by Milan Kundera
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7899981eae228ab9c7d1b823707da1cc16c0ec7764de53271594c9a3cc652788/danko-stjepanovic-photographer-personal-work-home-dubai-2018-6017.jpg)
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5569df3430dba5fae1f1ed878b1b86b573984acdca9b759d025da09360f4b048/danko-stjepanovic-photographer-personal-work-home-dubai-2018-5697.jpg)
As 1992 slowly dragged itself from autumn into winter, I started discovering Pearl Jam, cigarettes and Northern Exposure.
I’d just left a city of around half a million for a small town of 1,200 at the end of an island road. Boredom was abundant. There was a mountain at the rear, sea in front, and all your life had to be packed into a thin strip between the two.
I used to spend summers here, learning how to swim, ride a bicycle, and a thing or two about human anatomy at the local nudist beach. We’d spend the days jumping over stone drywalls and watching films from a treetop next to an open-air cinema.
I’d just left a city of around half a million for a small town of 1,200 at the end of an island road. Boredom was abundant. There was a mountain at the rear, sea in front, and all your life had to be packed into a thin strip between the two.
I used to spend summers here, learning how to swim, ride a bicycle, and a thing or two about human anatomy at the local nudist beach. We’d spend the days jumping over stone drywalls and watching films from a treetop next to an open-air cinema.
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ffef9727ef43e87bc2b9346365cb269221bcc64e5bfb3904ec50b12b64fd021b/danko-stjepanovic-photographer-personal-work-home-dubai-2018-5714.jpg)
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6d2829d1f9d291572f65b53e2a1ae2665ff9bbf62d604d83ce48ae592af654dd/danko-stjepanovic-photographer-personal-work-home-dubai-2018-0077.jpg)
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/4c91a425034731ed70e810c8e5cde57776521adbfce7ed3d170df7f90fba5100/danko-stjepanovic-photographer-personal-work-home-dubai-2018-5707.jpg)
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/43a11f0ad98ac0b868ae89fd9ddf81bb489819d787e4ce30c3f2d0b331d21edd/danko-stjepanovic-photographer-personal-work-home-dubai-2018-5965.jpg)
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/95f2d84db1868949da96971dd0527a05a55e43845b4c3a64c34dc6846077de59/danko-stjepanovic-photographer-personal-work-home-dubai-2018-5865.jpg)
As the clouds pressed lower and the sea became grey, the last bit of innocence was slowly squeezed out of my childhood. A tobacco rush and sad, suffering music made in Seattle came as natural escapes; the characters of Northern Exposure became role models in absence of others.
The winter was windy, solitary and quiet. By then, I knew the war wouldn’t finish in a month or two. Admitting that Sarajevo was no longer my home felt unacceptable, a betrayal of everyone who stayed behind and everyone who left. Still, this was where I was, where I had to be, where I had to find a way to be.
The winter was windy, solitary and quiet. By then, I knew the war wouldn’t finish in a month or two. Admitting that Sarajevo was no longer my home felt unacceptable, a betrayal of everyone who stayed behind and everyone who left. Still, this was where I was, where I had to be, where I had to find a way to be.
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ee013560d3ebf0a6d6636e07c8b49ff78f2dbc32890b09142192d13765fd78e7/danko-stjepanovic-photographer-personal-work-home-dubai-2018-5948.jpg)
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a6a80f032b75eef8575160962b23d6353207b7e478eed5fd626f0159cdf553d6/danko-stjepanovic-photographer-personal-work-home-dubai-2018-6400.jpg)
Among the few things we took when we left was a small 110 format camera. I started taking photos with it until I ran out of cassettes. I wasn’t developing the film; the entire purpose was simply to use the camera to frame mundane fragments of a new life. Whatever thoughts I had while doing it were left to slowly die off on those tiny frames. I was there; home, again.
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d55a382889775436fff9e5f0bf81b92784801e36e888088f9a22f00610d7c1ed/danko-stjepanovic-photographer-personal-work-home-dubai-2018-9882.jpg)
The small, personal habit of ‘framing things’ turned into a profession. I loved doing it, being away. In every new place, every country going through a rough patch, it was easy to stay detached and pick the crumbs off the surface of the situation. The problem was, it wasn’t real.
Bored, I’d start taking quiet photos; putting together a mosaic of seemingly unimportant things, pieces of people’s ‘normal’ lives, lives ‘before all this happened.’ I could taste in them some long-misplaced summers and winters of my own home.
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ebcfd9fa60182d6962c262c9208b6ceb9a61488d86948f3536ee8e696ca35139/danko-stjepanovic-photographer-personal-work-home-dubai-2018-6922.jpg)
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/66d5d6fb0d078a75fe7c5e78c2c4cbc1b52ceface715ca8d4ad7ae76e34bb577/danko-stjepanovic-photographer-personal-work-home-dubai-2018-8460.jpg)
As 2014 slowly dragged itself from spring into its excuse for summer, I started discovering the pleasures of painfully long runs, West London’s Polish community, and the soothing effect Waitrose has on a poor immigrant.
There is a girl now, with black hair and galaxies on her neck. But London feels like a huge, tame doll-house. I need life, people who say what they mean, not what they think people want to hear.
There is a girl now, with black hair and galaxies on her neck. But London feels like a huge, tame doll-house. I need life, people who say what they mean, not what they think people want to hear.
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/4ded2a4c78483e84696621983076f62f0a8f154d026898b6f73005084b51d412/danko-stjepanovic-photographer-personal-work-home-dubai-2018-5075.jpg)
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1592bf5f5f7b7a28ff4bf3258ed00627ad294bc8ea569e8927cd0cd8c7744bb3/danko-stjepanovic-photographer-personal-work-home-dubai-2018-8035.jpg)
I follow random strangers and ‘steal’ photographs of them, borrowing a little bit of their lives. I peek over fences into backyards and living rooms. Walks are long. More and more I lose myself in galaxies, frame by frame the city melts beneath me.
Home, again.
Home, again.
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/78343c54c060f26da4d4c5bcce9c4f5eeb701692fa8e0e00396fbbb2e11eed88/danko-stjepanovic-photographer-personal-work-home-dubai-2018-8263.jpg)
I travel back to the island. September is quiet. I’m sitting with a friend, Hrvoje, in our ‘living room’—the Marinero bar—under the same mulberry trees I used to perch on top of. Sometimes he wonders, wouldn’t it be easier if he belonged to just one place, if he had a strong sense of background, one less unknown in the equation we’re constantly solving.
In the shade, among the shouting of school children, all I can think about is how many more times I’ll be home, again.
In the shade, among the shouting of school children, all I can think about is how many more times I’ll be home, again.