In 1995 the most horrible thing happened in Srebrenica. Thousands of man killed, leaving a completely upset community. Some years later the Dutch werkgroep Nederland-Srebrenica started various projects to contribute to restoring the Srebrenica community. One of the projects was organising a summer camp for children from Srebrenica and the camps around. The goal was to give the children a good holiday time and the ability to play again, Servian and Bosnian childs together. We, that is a group of young Dutch artists, made a theatershow with them.

They could choose a workshop: dance, acting, fotography, music and stagedesign and after about 9 days they performed in the theater of Srebrenica. Our work ment more than doing only that, a summer camp also means eating together, talking, as far as we could with translators and our idiom of maybe 10 Bosnian words. Definitely this left a deep impression on me and i do feel the need to do more projects like this ( and a language training). Here, i think, i do see the way how one can contribute as an artist to society. This kind of projects, how limited they may seem for the children and for me, do show a way how to work.

More pictures of the summer weeks in Srebrenica in 2004: Werkgroep Nederland Srebrenica

Here one of the boys paints the props for the performance. He also painted his hairs, the floor and his arms as well. When he came in the classroom (we worked in the school in Srebrenica) he usually directly went to the paint and the brushes and started to empty the tubes. Where would I get more paint? Nema problema, no problem, in the shop in Potocari they would have more, i hoped. They didn't, and the hunting for proper materials was always going on.

I liked this boy, but i could not tell him: language barriers. I think if he gets more classes in painting or has a teacher who lets him do it, he will have something really good for him. He liked it, this boy who could also kick around pretty mean with his streetwise background. This ambivalency was something i noticed in many kids.