The subject of this project is my life story, presented through the medium of the dresses as multiple layers: layers of history, of the varied influences of people and places, of experiences, and of emotions. The dresses represent the different phases of my life: they begin with the home where I was born, growing up in the former Yugoslavia, and then continue through the outbreak of war in Bosnia-Herzegovina and my eventual exile. The dresses finish with my move to the United States, my first visit to Sarajevo six years later and what remained: the memories of my close family members. By shedding the layers as dresses and revisiting the emotions tied to them, I released a weight I had carried for years, one that tethered me to the past and kept me from fully living in the present.
Kuća (Bosnian for Home): Where the Walls Remember
