Spirit in Action
Pictures Without Borders - Bosnia Revisited
Steve Horn photographed throughout the former Yugoslavia in 1970, not returning with his camera until 2003, after the war in Bosnia. He documented the before and after of war and was able to take back to the people a slice of their pre-war past nearly lost. With his book, Pictures Without Borders - Bosnia Revisited, Steve teaches us to know our global neighbors. Raised in a Jewish family, Steve is a long-time resident of Lopez Island, Washington.
- Broadcast on:
- 03 Mar 2013
- Audio Format:
- other
[music] ♪ Let us sing this song for the healing of the world ♪ ♪ That we may hear as one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark helps me. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service, hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred food in your own life. ♪ Let us sing this song for the dreaming of the world ♪ ♪ That we may dream as one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ We've got some fun beauty and peace to share with you today for Spirit in Action. We're headed out to Lopez Island, one of the islands off the coast of Washington State. One of the reasons that Lopez Island is special is because they've been carrying my Northern Spirit radio programs for something like five years, and I always like to invite guests in from the areas where we're carried in order to help provide local programming, not simply mass market issues. Peace and justice grow locally, and I want to capture some of that good energy from Lopez Island, which is why our guest today is Lopez Island long-time resident, Steve Horn. Steve's bailiwick is a photography, and one way it's been used is to introduce people to each other across continents and time. Back in 1970, he traveled across Eastern Europe with his camera, and he caught special glimpses of multiple regions of what used to be known as Yugoslavia, countries like Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia, Croatia. After revisiting the area 33 years later, he assembled a book and exhibit of the region called Pictures Without Borders, Bosnia Revisited. As we talk with Steve about his paragranations in the Balkan regions, if you've got a computer handy, I encourage you to make our visit multimedia by going to either pictureswithoutborders.com or even better stevehorn.net, select portfolios, then documentaries, and then Balkans. Throughout this interview, we'll be sharing tidbits of Steve's travel, including music and audio recordings he captured. It's a beautiful way to encourage work for peace. We'll get Steve Horn on the phone in a moment, but first we'll launch our Balkan visit by a bit of the popular Macedonian song "Yovano Yovanque", this version by the Bakshi boys. "Yovano Yovanque" "Yovano Yovanque" "Yovano Yovanque" Steve, it's great to have you here today for Spirit in Action. I'm delighted to be here, Mark. Thanks for inviting me. Let's talk about where exactly you are. It's Lopez Island, which is a northern end of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Washington state. You're part of Washington state. How long have you been there, Steve? Well, I first came in the 70s, so it adds up to 40 years with some time off for good behavior. So that presupposes some good behavior on your part. There's been a mix, actually, and I mean that in all seriousness, but the time that I went away from the island was a wonderful time going back east for four years and eventually meeting my wife back there. So you went back east to get a bride and bring her out to the wilds of the West? That's the very short version, but we could stick with that if you want. And where are you from originally, or where did you live beforehand? I'm originally from the east. I'm from Westchester County from Scarsville, New York. And can you just tell me briefly what attracted you to Lopez Island, which is really essentially a small community isolated by bodies of water? Well, that would be one way to describe it. That wouldn't be my personal way of summing it up, but it sounds good. And it's actually just to clarify a little. We're not out in the ocean. It's definitely surrounded by water, and it's a 40-minute ferry ride from the mainland to get here in no bridges. But we're in the inland waters. What's called the Salish Sea or the Straits of Wanda Fuka leads into our waterways. So to be out at the ocean, you would be out past the Olympic Peninsula or the west coast of Vancouver Island. So we're in a protected water way, although it gets very rough at times. Of course, the main thing I want to talk to you about is your photography, and specifically your experiences in Bosnia, Slovenia, Macedonia, all of those places. And I'm especially interested in that because I think that peace and justice are so important in this world. And you had a crow's nest-eye view, maybe, of history taking place by having been in those places long before the wars that were so significant from our point of view that we got to observe. The U.S. of course misses a lot of this history. It doesn't even really know so many of the people of the world. You went there in 1970, your first trip around that area. Describe how you got to go there and why you went there, just because you have camera will travel. I went there originally as part of a field study project sponsored by the college that I was at. This was a brand new program that they had where you could take a year off from regular studies and propose a traveling project. And my proposal was to study traditional villages and communities in Europe and Eastern Europe, and I identified some places I wanted to go, and the Balkans were one that I chose. And that's how I ended up there. Did you choose the Balkans for any particular reason? Is it just, you know, it starts with a letter B? I like that, you know. Today's show is brought to you by the letter B. No, I actually got all the way through the alphabet before I made my final decision, and the Balkans came up as the high priority. And it really had to do with, I think it was visually first, I was looking through books of photography and books about traditional village architecture. And I kept coming to the fact that the Balkans and in particular the former Yugoslavia had this incredible mix of traditions, a mix of East and West, and it had to do a lot with the history. I just kept getting more and more drawn in by what I read and what I saw. And so the culture and the visual aspects of it were drawing you. What about your interest in peace and justice? Was that something that was current for you at that time? 1970, we're talking about, is it something that has some kind of a major place for you? I mean, one of the places, the exhibition you had was called Pictures Without Borders, Bosnia Revisited. And that's your first photography book, 2005. Pictures Without Borders, we have Doctors Without Borders and all those kinds of things. Of course, Pictures Without Borders is maybe a nice pun, I don't know. So was Peace Work back in 1970 any part of your motivation? It really was, and I appreciate that you picked up on the title. And certainly, I tend to, I like to play with words. It's just been a part of my life. But really, the larger connection for me was organizations like Doctors Without Borders and the idea of really working across borders. So that's very much what I was leading toward with the book title. And my interest in peace work does go back a long ways. In fact, I was looking through letters that were written about my mother who died when I was pretty young and I still trying to know more who she was. And in cleaning out my folks apartment years ago, I just, you know, how that is. You know, some things just go in boxes and I've been gradually sorting through. And here were these letters of condolence over my mother's dad's written to my dad that talked about her work with peace and how active she was with women's strike for peace and other organizations. And there was something very moving and meaningful about understanding that perhaps some of my passion and connection with that goes back to a long time ago, maybe some influence through her. In the '70s, the Vietnam War was raging, you know, the late '60s, mid '60s, late '60s. And then, you know, expanding into Cambodia. I had a deferment through being a student and that continued with this project, but there was definitely a feeling of outrage and horror at what our country was doing supposedly in the name of safety and peace. I felt somehow that I wanted to travel during that time and just at least present a different view of my own feelings about what I believed and what I held dear as somebody from this country and be willing to share that with people as I traveled. And I think that had an influence on my traveling during that time. I choosing to travel. Were you tempted at all to try and go to Vietnam and maybe capture that culture as well? This is a random thought of mine, but a lot of us are not tempted to go to war zones. But given that you wanted to capture these cultures and be part of peacemaking, did you have any thought in that direction? Well, you know, it's interesting. At that time, I didn't consider myself as having an interest in photojournalism as I think of it now. And as I'm drawn to it now, actually, I was more a landscape photographer and my original thought was to be photographing primarily villages and architecture and not so much people and not so much events that were unfolding. I just didn't see myself as a photojournalist and that didn't come out, but it's very intriguing that you mention it because now I probably would have considered that more if I had been back then and having the photojournalistic inclination that I do now. I'm also intrigued by the idea that your mother was a peace activist, that that's part of her letters as part of what's captured from her life. Where did that come from and what was the source of her motivation for that? Again, she's a generation older than you. It was certainly not unanimous that you're in my parents' generations were peace activists. Certainly, there was an upswell of that from the younger generation, those who were coming of age in the '60s and '70s. Well, you know, I would love it if somehow there was a way to invite my deceased mother to join us in the interview and answer your question directly. I would love to hear her answers. But I can only guess that she in a broader sense, she was very involved and had strong feelings about social justice, about nonviolence. I don't know that it came directly from her family because her immediate family were pretty conservative, pretty upset with some of her pursuits and beliefs. So, you know, I don't know exactly how she formed that. It's a really great question and I would love to know the answer. You said she died when you were young. My mom died when I was nine. What was it for you? Well, she died when I was a little older, 14. But it was really profound. And part of it was that it just wasn't talked about. It wasn't talked about. She had cancer. And my father didn't want me to be worried about her. So he wasn't candid with me that she was getting more and more ill. He told me that she was getting weaker because the radiation was helping or something like that. And I finally called him on it, but it wasn't until very late that I just said, "I don't believe she's getting better." And then, you know, he finally told me that she actually was dying. That's where I think there's been so much remarkable progress in young people being able to come to terms with something like that. You know, at least in my experience, and especially here on Lopez, young people are brought into the conversations and into the truth of what's taking place. And I think that's powerful. So about your mother, was there any religious or spiritual component to her outlook that you know of? Well, our family is Jewish by heritage. And we were reform Jews in our observance, which, you know, is, I would say it's kind of a, you could either call it progressive or watered-town version of traditional Jewish religion and spirituality. So I never sensed that it was through formal religion. And as far as what her, you know, what her spiritual beliefs were on subtler levels, you know, this is still, it's part of the puzzle pieces for me of who she was. I'm surprised how little I vividly remember of who she was. And I have to not be hard on myself about that. It's like, how can one not remember one's mother who I grew up with, you know, for 14 years? Unfortunately, you don't know much about the spiritual roots. Tell me a little bit about yours. Now, in 1970, you go to this area that used to be known as Yugoslavia. I mean, it includes places like Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia, Slovenia, Bosnia. All of this is part of this region. Yeah, it's all part of what was then one country. When I was traveling in that area, there were no borders between those areas where now there are. There are now like six countries where there was just one. What age are you at this time, 1970? I would say 20. I turned 21 on that trip. And certainly growing up during this swelling of the size of the military during the Vietnam War, it produces a worldview, pro or con, for people involved with it. Obviously, it went kind of con for you. Did you carry a Jewish identity with you? And did that make a difference going to Yugoslavia? Well, I think I have an identity as a person who felt very strongly about peace, about disarmament, you know, a reduction of nuclear weapons. I think that was a pretty direct inheritance from both my parents because my father shared a lot of those beliefs and points of view. And I just had kind of this flashback as you were speaking about conversations around the dinner table when I was quite young where my parents were talking about peace and about disarmament and about what was happening in terms of the escalation of the arms race. And I was definitely affected by that. And I think I absorbed it and resonated with a lot of it so that by the time I went on my trip in 1970, I was very strongly opposed to the Vietnam War and to, you know, a lot that was going on in terms of the arms race, but even nuclear power development. And I think that as far as a spiritual component or a Jewish identity that I brought with me, I definitely felt like I was coming as a Jewish person, but it really didn't seem to typically have a lot of impact. It was, you know, if it came up in conversation in certain places, it was more of either curiosity or people seemed fine with it generally. There's actually a tradition of there's a Jewish community that has long been in parts of the former Yugoslavia, especially Sarajevo, a really vibrant Jewish community. So really my struggle was when I went to Germany, it really surprised me. I had to wrestle with some inner demons around just going into the country, this country that, you know, long ago had had a dictator and tyrant and someone who, you know, was involved in such huge genocide against the Jewish people. So there was just the kind of these echoes of almost like my grandparents fears coming out in me because they definitely expressed to me, you know, as a young person, some of their fears of Germany as a country from there having been more recently through that ordeal. And when I asked about whether your Jewish identity affected you in Serbia, I was also thinking, isn't that the area where a lot of programs happened, where Jews were oppressed and were put in slums, and that wasn't only in Germany that you had the oppression or the prejudice against Jews. I guess you didn't get the echoes of that during your visit? I didn't, and it was some different, that there were certainly parts of Eastern Europe where that was very much the case, you know, like Czechoslovakia. By the time it went down to the former Yugoslavia, there were definitely fascist governments and puppet governments that came in. There was a lot of persecution of Jews and others, gypsies, but it wasn't on the level of what happened in other parts of Eastern Europe, to my knowledge, and I did not get that as strongly as I did. Some of the other kinds of atrocities that took place between different ethnicities of people from Yugoslavia. For those listening in, I'm speaking with Steve Horne, he's a photographer, and I guess maybe his first step into photojournalism was back in 1970 when he traveled to the area. It used to be called Yugoslavia, and it's now devolved into six different nations at that point. We know it because of the wars that happened, the crises that happened in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia. There's so much havoc that happened in that area, particularly, I think, in the 1990s. But in 1970, when Steve visited there, it was still one nation under socialism with what, Joseph Tito? Was that his name? Yes, Joseph and Bros was his true last name, but his nickname was Tito. Okay, again, we're speaking with Steve Horne. You can see the photographs, both past and present, that Steve was taken in that area. One way to do it is go to the site that was prepared for his book released in 2005, pictures without borders.com. So on pictures without borders.com, you'll see a number of sumptuous photographs from 1970 and coming forward from there when Steve has revisited the area. But even better, you might just go to his website, stevehorne.net. And stevehorne.net, look under portfolios, there's documentaries there, and you'll find Balkans from the 1970, 2003, 2008. And Steve has, perhaps by the time this airs, maybe he'll even put up photos from his 2010 trip. You're kind of ramping up the pressure there. So again, stevehorne.net is where you're going to find those photos and find out about Steve's work as a photographer. He lives in Washington state on Lopez Island, a bit off the coast there. And I also want to talk a little bit later, Steve, about Lopez Island, because I get the idea that there's something special there. Besides the fact that, of course, they broadcast this program there, which is broadcast around the nation. The program is Spirit in Action. I'm Mark Helps meat host for this Nordens spirit radio production on the web at nordenspiritradio.org. On the site, you'll find almost eight years worth of programs you can listen to and download links to guests. There's place to leave comments, and we'd like you to be part of our community. So please go leave a comment. You can make donations there as well. And I'd also like to encourage you to support your local radio stations. Community radio stations provide a service much needed in this country. And so please do support your local radio stations. You can also donate to nordenspiritradio via my site or you find the address there. Again, stevehorne with us here, stevehorne.net. We're talking about the photography that he's done, which is photojournalism really at work. In 1970, steve, you went to this area called Yugoslavia at the time. You went back in 2003 and you got more photos and revisited places. Please tell us what was motivating you and what that did for you to have those two different snapshots, so to speak, of time. Well, in terms of what motivated me to go back, I guess if I can try to distill it down a bit, but still be anecdotal too, the war broke out in the early '90s, 1992 in Bosnia. At that time, there was a lot in the news mentioning places that I had traveled aside from Sarajevo, smaller towns that I had been through, and just hearing these horrific accounts of what was going on, I tuned into it, I think, in a much stronger way than, of course, somebody might if they were just unfamiliar names. And I remembered that I had those old photographs, and I didn't immediately start printing them, those photographs from the '70s. But I heard about a fundraising effort, and it seemed to really be a good thing. It was called the Bosnian Student Project, and young people were being brought out of the war zone to study in this country and put together with host families scattered around the United States. And this was a program sponsored by the Fellowship of Reconciliation. I was involved, and I'm involved with a Quaker group on Lopez, and we decided we wanted to be part of that fundraising effort, and I got the idea to print up some of the old pictures, and we sold them as fundraiser materials. We had a benefit on Lopez. We invited up some Bosnian students, and they came and spoke, and I developed a connection with one of them, who I gave a photograph of the town of Mostar to him, which had been where he lived before the war, and his parents still were living. And just the whole experience of getting involved in that and printing up the old photograph, it just reconnected me a lot with the region beyond just hearing it on the news. So that was the early 90s, 2003, a lot of years after that, and I think it took that amount of time for me to, well, the war went on until 1995, was when the Dayton Peace Accord was signed, so still another eight years went by before I actually got back there. I didn't initially think about going back, but I realized that I had this collection of pictures that many of them were taken in some of these places in the war zone, and I had been told by a colleague who worked at the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Doug Hostetter, that those pictures would have a lot of meaning for people back there, and that's when I started to just get the idea of maybe going back. So really going back to summarize what that was, why it had to do more with bringing the old pictures back than taking new pictures, and that was a new concept for me. Photographers, we so often we think about, you know, you just think about the term and taking a picture. It's an easy thing to want to do when you're a photographer and to have the focus be literally bringing back pictures and giving them rather than taking them. I printed many extra copies of these photographs with the thought and intention that I would hopefully find people interested in having them, so that was really the focus of the trip. I certainly did take pictures, new pictures when I was there, but really the heart of the project in some ways was bringing those pictures back and retracing my route. And in some cases trying to take pictures at the same spot where I had taken the original one, so that was maybe the new component was to align myself with those places I'd been and see what had changed and document and share that. I assume that again, there's this peacemaking element in your work and in producing of this book, Pictures Without Borders, Bosnia Revisited. What did you hope that sharing the pictures when you were back and producing this book? What was your purpose? What were you hoping to do? How would people be affected by it? To me, where the trip back really shifted and took on a deeper significance and really became a story that swept me away with it was in the course of bringing these pictures back, I had hoped maybe I would be able to find some of the people who were pictured in them, who were children at that time, but I knew it was a really long shot. I didn't have any names. I had a pretty good idea of where I had taken them, but I did nevertheless print a number of these pictures, and I even enlarged some of them so some of the children's faces would be more easily identifiable. In the course of showing these photographs around, I was able to connect with some children who had been in the pictures as five-year-olds, and they were now nearly 40, and they had families of their own, and they had no pictures from that time in their life. They had fled their homes and village during the war. Their houses had been bombed and destroyed, and everything in them was destroyed with it, and so then I just had no idea what the significance would be. I didn't imagine it would be on that level, but when it was and when I connected with some of these people, and I could see what meaning it had for them to have these photographs in their hands and have them in their life, then it really transformed for me into a story of connection, which I just felt very moved by, and I think we're all hungry for stories of connection. I know for myself they have special meaning for me when I hear how people who maybe live very different lives, or maybe they even have a past of conflict, and there's a connection, so this was post 9/11. I went in 2003, so 2001 wasn't that far behind. Our country was talking about homeland security and cracking down on liberties, and taking on this posture that we really needed to erect fences and borders and isolate ourselves in a sense for the safety of ourselves. And kind of by implication maybe, that the world would be safer if we took these steps for ourselves. And I really felt just the opposite, that it was about trying to open up borders and connect, and so that's why I think that the timing of this had a lot of significance for me, and I felt in sharing the story at a kind of post 9/11 time, hopefully would resonate with other people too. And when you went on the 2003 trip, did you already have in mind that you were producing this book, Pictures Without Borders, Bosnia or a Visivit? I had absolutely no idea. My mission was to bring back these pictures, and I really saw myself in a census as a courier, and try to find their proper owners, and also to try to do this documenting that I was intrigued by, and thought would also be meaningful to go retrace my route and document that in pictures. And maybe, you know, kind of this dream of actually finding some of the people. I didn't imagine a book at all, and it was, I think the first inklings of that were when I was in Sarajevo, some people connected me with a magazine editor there of Donnie magazine, which is kind of the Bosnian version of Newsweek. It's a weekly news magazine with a lot of photography and a lot of human interest stories and news. And the editor looked at what I had and heard what I was doing, and she knew I was really directly headed back to the place I thought I was most likely to find some of these kids. She said, "If you find any of those children, I will publish a feature story about what you're doing." And I wouldn't say that that spurred me on, but I would say that it opened a door that, when I did make that connection, it didn't take long for me to think about giving her a call and saying, "I have made this connection." So that was the beginning of it, and then when I came back home, I put together a slideshow for the community here at our community center. A lot of people had known I was taking the trip back. There'd been some publicity in the local paper, and I got a good turnout there at the slideshow, and I really put a lot of energy into making the slideshow just as best I could, because I wanted to tell the story as faithfully as I was able. So I had brought a little audio recorder with me, and I had recorded both ambient sounds as well as interviews with some of the people I photographed. I included those in the slideshow, so I made it multimedia, and people said that was really effective to do. And I do think it added to the experience. Anyway, somebody came up to me the next day and said that their spouse had been to the slideshow, they hadn't been able to attend, but they wanted to know more about it and talk with me and wondered if it might be a book project, and they might be able to be helpful some with just the beginning stages of that. That led to putting together a portfolio for a photo festival where there are a lot of publishers and gallery people, and I made a connection with a European book publisher there, and that's when it really became more visioned into a book. I'm interested in this as piece work, and I'm sure you have a vision that is piece work as well. For me, part of the philosophy that I have, and I think a lot of people who consider them piece advocates, they tend to think, well, okay, there's governmental initiatives and there's ways you negotiate between sides, that's all piece work. I think a too much neglected form of piece work is this sharing of identities that comes through in pictures. In my case, it comes through in folk dance. I'm an international folk dancer, so I'd love to go to that area just to dance with the folks, and there are folk dance trips and tours and trainings and all of that over there. So my sense is that we can do piece work really importantly in the world just by availing ourselves, sharing our culture and dipping our feet into their culture. And by doing that, knowing one another, as soon as you know someone else, it's just not so easy to drop a bomb on them. What about for you? How do you envision this book making a difference in terms of piece? Well, I really connect a lot with what you're saying, and that really informs what I feel in terms of why I do some of this and what its potential is as a project to do something that attempts to connect people across different cultures and backgrounds. And a lot of people told me that the slideshow in particular and the book, but I took the slideshow on tour to a number of different places in the U.S. and also in Bosnia. And I almost universally got a response from a number of people, especially in this country who were not familiar with Bosnia at all or really what had happened there, except what they'd gotten from the PV News, that they really felt a connection to these people on a deep level that they would not have had otherwise. And that was, you know, what just really gave the project a lot of meaning for me to get that kind of feedback. On the other hand, taking the show to Bosnia, and I took it both in the form of a traveling exhibit and slideshow, and that happened in this country as well, there was a traveling exhibit. But in Bosnia, I was at a couple of the openings of the exhibits. And there the people, a number of people shared with me just how they appreciated that I had taken the effort to make this connection with them, and they felt in a way more seen and recognized, you know, just they felt that Bosnia was after the war, just largely ignored, except by some of the aid community. And so to have this person come with a show of photographs and to have come a number of occasions to the country and come back and taken the time to do this, I think that had a lot of meaning, too, and was a positive kind of gesture for speaking of peace and connection. Between countries. You know, you've mentioned several times, Steve, that you went back in the hopes of connecting with some of these people. Did it actually happen? It did, and in a really most wonderful way, I had been traveling around with a young translator and a guide. And we came to the town of Jaitze, and we were showing the photographs around, and somebody said, "Well, I don't know that group of kids, but I know exactly where you took that photograph." And that was like exciting in itself. It took us up this hillside overlooking the city. It was the old part of this small city of Jaitze. And stopped at this house where he thought he would ask the person inside whether they recognized any of these children, because he knew that was the neighborhood that I'd taken that picture in 30 years before. So he disappeared inside, knocked in the door, went inside the house, came out 30 seconds later with a man who he identified as the brother of one of the children in the photograph. And sure enough, this person said, "Yes, that's my sister in the photograph. These are all her best friends. And she's inside now. I'll go get her." And just those moments of knowing that this connection had been made, she came out pretty quick, but it seemed like forever just waiting for her to come out and anticipating. And so she came out, she looked at the photograph, she said, "Oh my gosh, you know, and I have this on audio. We had the tape recorder running during this." So you kind of hear her response and then all the ambient sounds. "And what was it like for her to see that photograph when she just looked at it for the first time?" She couldn't describe the moment, but she's very glad and she... And it just really, to me, recreates that feeling of just the miracle of what it is to come out of the blue with something like that. You know, after we talked her a bit, she said, "You know, I do know all these people. They were my childhood best friends. And one of them lives right down the hill from here. You want to meet them?" So we went down and that person was actually out, but came back while we were still there. And that was Jeff, whose real name was Fairness. And same thing, he looked at the photograph, couldn't believe it. We looked at him and saw the amazing resemblance to the picture in terms of just how his hair looked. And they invited us in. But here we went from hoping this would happen and having this collection of photographs to finding these people and then hearing their stories. And it was as though I felt after just a very short time that I had known Jeff and his family for quite a while, and we still stay connected. I actually just spoke with them about a week and a half ago by Skype with the help of a translator who was visiting me. And it was wonderful just to have that experience of reconnecting with them. So it's very hard to describe what it's like to show old photographs to people for whom they have so much meaning. But it's a really wonderful way to connect and unforgettable. You know the American attention span for people outside our border, or maybe even inside our border, is pretty small. I mean, I think there's a lot of people who can barely remember Iraq at this point, or Afghanistan. I mean, obviously they're still current. But, I mean, we were involved in what happened in Sarajevo in Bosnia. I mean, we were involved in trying to, in the aftermath almost, trying to prevent the bloodbath that happened in that region, in the Balkans. But I'm imagining there's a lot of people now who maybe they've forgotten, or maybe they wish to forget, because there's a lot of pain with that. You went to this area first in 1970 and then revisiting in 2003, 2008, 2010, you've been back there. How did it feel to you to visit an area where a lot of killing, a lot of violence, the aftermath of war, how did that affect you? I have my own ideas about this, because I went to Rwanda, you know, 15 years after the genocide happened there. So how did it feel to you? Well, even before I went back, just, you know, as I had mentioned, hearing on the radio stories of what was happening in these cities was truly a nightmare to imagine. But it was on a whole different level to go there in 2003, which was after the war by a number of years, but there were still everywhere. There were signs of the war bombed out buildings and shrapnel craters and bullet holes and walls. And then the horrific stories that people would share of what happened. So the first few nights back there, I actually had, I would close my eyes and I would just see these scenes of the devastation of the day that I had seen. Somehow, you know, I'd seen some beautiful areas too often, let's say, in any particular day, and met some wonderful people. But those images of the aftermath of war really haunted me for the first few days. And then something shifted and I, you know, I more was able to connect in the present and I would still see those scenes. But it's not like I became callous to them. I think I was still moved by them. But I was more able to take in the current stories and be present with people and see what was changing and what had been rebuilt and what were the present struggles. It was a process really. I've been back twice since that first trip back in 2008, 2010, and each time there's more rebuilding and less obvious evidence of the war. I would say now what is really hard to see is just the struggle that the people still go through. The economy is just in shambles. There's a lot of corruption in the government and the people are barely making ends meet. And that part is really still another aftermath of war. When I went back in 2010, I had gotten a grant to have an exhibit of the Bosnian project in the same towns where I had taken the original pictures. And I had to partner with a Bosnian museum, and I did that, and I received the grant and went back there. And one really memorable occasion was when the museum director took me on a picnic with her colleagues and we went into the mountains to a lake to have like lunch of fresh fish, which they caught. And in the course of lunch, the group of them, they were probably five or six, they began singing this old Yugoslav folk song. So it was pre-war folk song. I knew that they were of different ethnicities, this group of museum people by just what they had told me already and their names. And I mentioned something about how is it that you all can be together and sing together and you're singing the same song? How did that come to be? Because I was very moved by, there by the lake, and here's this group of people singing this song and seeming to have such camaraderie and truly did have camaraderie. One of them told me we are different ethnicities. One of us is Croat, one of us is Sir, but another is a Bosnian Muslim, Bosniak. But through all this time we have kept our connection because of our love of what we share, not what separates us and our love of culture and common history. That's what keeps us together and that's how we can sing this song together. And I just thought it was such a beautiful and moving statement of what that is to keep in touch with people as humans and fellow country men. A country that is like a small sea, not a big sea with a particular name attached to it and colleagues and friends and how that be what informs how they relate to each other. I just thought it was a beautiful story and really it was a story of peace that was quite simple but quite profound too. So I think the moral of the story is that picnics are good for peace. Picnics and song I think as well. Sure. Listeners, I want to remind you that where you can find these photographs, you can see a number of them online. You can also obviously purchase the book, Pictures Without Borders, Bosniak Revisited. Find out about this by going to pictureswithoutborders.com or even better go to stevehorn.net under portfolios, look at documentaries, you'll see pictures from the Balkans in 1970, 2003, 2008, and I think soon you'll see more photos from 2010. So there's going to be a certain amount of feeling of obligation to do that in a positive sense so thank you for that lighting a fire there Mark. Yeah, just a couple of other things I want to ask you about Steve to tie things up. One of them was you grew up in a culturally Jewish family, a Reformed Judaism. You mentioned along the way that you're connected with Quakers there on Lopez Island and Lopez Island is what fewer than 2,000 people, something like that. 2,500 people just to give us a little more numbers there. Okay, you've been thriving 2,500 people and evidently there's some kind of group of Quakers there as well. Quakers are a tiny fraction of the population. Is Lopez Island some kind of a Quaker magnet or is it particular hospitable to Quakers? And how did you get associated with the ilk of Quakers after coming from noble people like the Jews? Oh gosh, not sure how to respond to that last part of what you said. I think there was just some playfulness in it. Well for me the connection to our Quaker group goes back quite a ways probably 20 years to when the group began. It was started just as a group of maybe four or five six individuals who met in a home each week and it's developed from there. We have a larger group and a much more connection to the wider Quaker community and a really thriving meeting. And for me I was drawn to it partly because of the Quaker commitment to peace as one of the elements of what is held dear to Quakers. There isn't really a formal theology and I appreciate that but there's definitely values that are celebrated and respected and pursued. And one of them people are probably familiar with simplicity that's a well known one and peace is another very strong one. So that I think was part of what drew me in initially and I had done some work back east with American Friends Service Committee which is a Quaker based peace and justice group. So I had a good initial feeling about Quakers but there was also the hesitation that the background of Quakerism has Christian roots. That was just a struggle for me a bit that I bump into it from time to time but where I come out is that I've always felt welcomed. I haven't felt like I need to leave my Jewish heritage at the door. I feel like there's a really it's a broad tent that welcomes people from really a range of different beliefs about what spirit is. And even people who are non-theists and certainly people from other persuasions whether it is some form of Christianity or Buddhists or I don't think we have any Muslims at the moment but they would I think they would feel welcomed there I can't imagine that they wouldn't anymore than I do. So that's a little bit about that. Well Steve there's a whole lot more that I'd like to ask you about Lopez Island. One of the reasons I wanted to reach out to some of you folks on Lopez Island with Spirit and Action is because you've been carrying my program. You're one of the early broadcasters of my program perhaps five years ago so I'm thankful to be in touch with people out on Lopez Island. I have a sense that in some ways it's a very special community. There's a special identity there. And of course I'd like to talk to you more but we've got the clock is winding down as we know. I'm so thankful that you got involved not just in photography but photojournalism. There is such a powerful thing that we can do with our eyes. You know the pictures worth a thousand words. You've captured so much of that by visiting this area Yugoslavia, Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia. I want to remind our listeners go to stevehorn.net. You can see these pictures look under portfolios, documentary, Balkans and you can take a look there at the wonderful slices of culture and people that Steve Horn has brought back from there. You can also find some of them by the site dedicated to his book pictures without borders.com. Either one of those places you'll see something special that's come to us through the eyes of Steve Horn. Steve thank you so much for not sharing just your pictures but your words with us here today for Spirit and Action. Oh you're welcome. It was my pleasure. We'll say farewell to Steve in a very appropriate way for spirit in action. With prayers that Steve recorded next to a fountain in the courtyard of the Ghazi Husrev Begh Mosque in Sarajevo. See you next week for spirit in action. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] The theme music for this program is turning of the world performed by Sarah Thompson. This spirit in action program is an effort of Northern Spirit Radio. You can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website northernspiritradio.org. Thank you for listening. I am your host Mark Helpsmeet and I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit. May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light. This is Spirit in Action. With every voice, with every song, we will move this world along. With every voice, with every song, we will move this world along and our lives will feel the echo of our healing. You