Narrative Witness:
A CARACAS-SARAJEVO COLLABORATION
Narrative Witness: A Caracas-Sarajevo Collaboration is the IWP’s first exchange between writers and photographers. The exchange brought together two communities in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Caracas, Venezuela. Narrative Witness began in June 2014 with a live video seminar, gathering 22 emerging and established photographers and writers for a discussion of visual and textual storytelling, led by author Stacy Mattingly and photojournalist Elizabeth Herman. Through photo essays, nonfiction, and fiction, the group undertook to narrate an immersive experience, both documentary and imagined, of two worlds.
Throughout the summer of 2014, the participants met online for weekly writing and photography workshops. The participants wrote in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, Spanish, and English; Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian-English translator Mirza Purić and Spanish-English translator Mariela Matos Smith translated their work into English week by week so that the group’s critical discussions might include everyone. New responsive work arose from these discussions, and at the exchange’s conclusion, a new international community had been forged.
PARTICIPANTS
Marina Alagić-Bowder, Sarajevo; José Tomás Angola Heredia, Caracas; Oscar B. Castillo, Caracas; Alejandro Cegarra, Caracas; Neđla Ćemanović, Sarajevo; Vanja Čerimagić, Sarajevo; Nermana Česko, Sarajevo; Sonia Chocrón, Caracas; Dijala Hasanbegović, Sarajevo; Efrén Hernández Arias, Caracas; Kulović Selma, Sarajevo; Vladimir Marcano, Caracas; Naida Muratović, Sarajevo; Joaquín Ortega, Caracas; Hensli Rahn Solórzano, Caracas; Ricardo Ramírez Requena, Caracas; Fedosy Santaella, Caracas
Isabella Saturno, Caracas; Matea Šimić, Sarajevo; Humberto Valdivieso, Caracas; Daniela Valenta, Sarajevo; Zerina Zahirović, Sarajevo
The Caracas-SarAjevo collection
Through the collected work of the exchange, the two worlds of Caracas and Sarajevo are set apart, bridged, and overlapped. The International Writing Program is proud to showcase their work in our Narrative Witness 1 Collection.