Approaching Buhomba repatriate camp across the plain, its corrugated aluminium roofs shimmer as if a mirage. Waves of heat beat up off the earth, suspending children’s kites fashioned from string and straw and plastic bags that twist and glimmer. Sideways, paper-thin, the kites are invisible, secured by an unperceivable thread to the dust below. The tin roofs of the houses are tied down to boulders with bicycle chains. In a wasteland once the stronghold of rebels, these shacks are hidden from the rest of Burundi. In the world’s third poorest country, they are invisible to the rest of the world. Those who live in Buhomba hide from the sun in uniform grey mud houses. From the road, there is no one here.

The camp is home to 450 returned refugees who fled Burundi and the Hutu-Tutsi massacres of 1972 and 1993 and are now returned from Rwanda, Tanzania, Congo and Sudan, bringing children born abroad and memories of their families who died in this country. Having left Burundi so long ago, many no longer remember where their family was from; with no home to return to, they are herded into government-built camps. “At least in the refugee camps we had food,” says Alina, born in Congo to refugee parents. “Here, the government give each person 25kg of maize or peas, and that must last six months. We eat once a day, or sometimes go without. When once they forgot to send food, we marched on foot to the Ministry to demand it.” Without money to pay for books and uniforms, Alina’s children join her working in the fields of others rather than going to school. A day’s work can earn 500 Burundian francs (27 centimes), enough for a handful of tiny dried fish.

Tanzania’s forced closing of its refugee camps has pushed thousands of Burundians across the border to their homeland, to days spent in sun-beaten lines outside administrative offices seeking help to build homes. The roads are lined with bricks hewn out of the red earth; with no seeds to plant, people sell their land thirty centimetres at a time. Yet few can afford these luxuries, with many of the 700,000 new arrivals living in makeshift shacks of straw and ubiquitous UNICEF tarpaulins. Those in barren Buhomba, though their children gnaw leaves for sustenance, are the lucky ones.

Though the camp is surrounded by empty land, its inhabitants are forbidden from sowing the cassava or sweet potato that they tend in other people’s fields. Elizabeth looks out of the doorway of the house she shares with her eight children, her eyes following the straight line of houses to the wide and dust-covered plain that surrounds them. Hungrily, she watches its straws rustle. “To grow, that would be another life. The morning I have my own land, that will be another world.”

Text by Laura Gabrielle Dix, photographs taken in Buhomba, Burundi 2009

Buhomba repatriate camp. As recently as a year ago, this area was a rebel stronghold in which people from other areas of the country would not dare enter.

Born to refugee parents in Congo, Alina Nininahazwe left when war broke out there too in 2007. Not knowing whereabouts in Burundi her family came from, she and her three children now live in Buhomba camp.

Elizabeth left Burundi aged 9 to escape the massacres of Hutus by the Tutsi army in 1972, a time known as “ikiza”, “le fléau”. After four years in a transit camp where her husband died, Elizabeth has assumed the role of counsellor in Buhomba, settling disputes amongst the camp’s inhabitants.

Swaris Ndereyimana, 24, was born in a Tanzanian refugee camp. Returning to Burundi in 2004, her husband left her to marry another woman.

Janvier Harimenshi is the camp chief. Himself previously a refugee in Congo, two weeks after his arrival in Buhomba he was appointed due to his wisdom and calm ability for solving the camp’s many conflicts over food.

Sunzu Antisept continued to move from country to country after he fled Burundi in 1972. For the five years before his return to Burundi he lived in Sudan; now, with no family, he shares his single room with another repatriate.

Marie-Claire is pregnant with her second child, the first having been born in a transit camp when the family returned from Rwanda. By far the most prosperous in the camp, her family in Europe send a little money allowing her husband to study psychology at university in the capital, Bujumbura.

Immaculée (centre), her mother and children, who fled to Congo and then returned when her husband was killed there. Her son, Desirée, has mixed feelings about their return: “When we spoke of Burundi in Congo, I was happy; but when we came here, that happiness vanished.”

Zawadi Nyonzyme is 20 and has four children, one twin tied to her back whilst she feeds the other before swapping them around. Her husbands begs during the day so that in the evening they might buy a handful of dried fish for 200 FrB (12 cents). High inflation drives up prices of petrol every few months, leaving Burundians increasingly unable to afford adequate food.

Haboniman Shaban is 61 and takes care of the children whilst his wife, one of the camp’s fortunates who is still strong enough to work, labours in nearby villagers’ fields for payment of a few vegetables.

50-year-old Kira Ntaconiru looks after her 5 grandchildren after the deaths of their parents. Three of the children work each day in a stone mine to feed the family.

Generose Nibigara returned from Congo with her two children in 1994, working unpaid as a servant in houses before getting a place in the government-administered camp. Generose found elderly Februine Barakamfitiye in the forest having been robbed, and brought her back to her house where she now takes care of the children.

Estelle Ndayisaba escaped to Tanzania as a refugee in 1993, but when she returned in 1998 she found her former home occupied by another family, and herself with no means to get it back. With so many fleeing the violence of the early 90s, the Burundian government encouraged those remaining to take over abandoned houses in the south and east of the country. Many thousands of repatriates share Estelle’s situation.

In the centre of the vast African continent, there is a constellation of misery. Fetid, isolated, and often illegal, Burundi’s single-cell “cachot” prisons are off the radar of even many of the country’s human rights organisations. Children as young as ten crouch in the reeking dark of these dungeons, sometimes for years, often with no evidence against them, and rarely having seen the inside of a court room. The Burundian constitution states fourteen days as the maximum imprisonment; the reality is a violent miscarriage of any sense of justice.

For many prisoners, the only crime they have encountered is that of their imprisonment, and torture at the hands of the police. Arrested for infractions as myriad as sorcery and murder – or in the case of 10 year old Eli-Davide in Cibitoke, for just watching a stranger stealing DVDs – the unlucky pass from the violent hands of the police to the abuses of life under prisoner chiefs: “If someone new can’t pay the cachot tax, he can spend a week without sitting down, without eating – he must live in the corner where we shit in the night.” Without documentation or representation, these losers of the seemingly random justice game are truly lost.

Text by Laura Gabrielle Dix, photographs taken in Burundi 2009

“The Dungeon” will be exhibited at the Gallery bar floreal in Paris starting the 26. November 2009. The exhebition called “Les Visas de l’ANI” is innitiated  by Association Nationale des Iconographes(ANI) / French national photo editor’s association and will be also shown at Visa pour l`image, Perpignan 2010.

OPG (Officier de la Police General), general police officer, responsible for the detention cell in Buhinjuza, near the city Muyinga.

25 year old Miboro infront of his cell in Buhinjuza, near the city Muyinga Burundi 2009. He has been arrested for raping a young girl. The girl will be forced by her family to marry him, a decision made by the two families, and he will be freed without a trial in the next days.

Insight the detention cell of Cibitoke, where 38 man and children are captured. Most prisoners are held there up to 2 Years. By law the prisoners have to be judged after being captured for max. 14 days.

The prisoners receive no food by the government in these detention cells. The family members outside have to bring it to them. Some prisoners have no food for weeks and they beg the others to get the left over’s.

10 year old Eli-Davide with his friend who where both captured in a CD shop while some other people stole cd`s and run away. They have been held since three weeks and no family member has contacted them jet.

11 Year old Marie who is captured since 3 weeks after stealing the cell phone of Muyingas Administrator.

14 year old Jamila who is captured since 4 days because of helping her friend stealing money from her landlord. Women are sleeping generally in the floor-part. The Policeman say that there is no contact between the man and the women, but the man have to cross the floor to use the toilet.

Judges waiting in Buhinjuza, near the city Muyinga.

Since the 2. Mai 2008 1300 workers « without papers » are occupying  the employment office called  Bourse du travail near Republique in the centre of Paris. The building radically transformed into a logement of the protestants and their families. A colourfull labyrinth has been created though matraces, blanckets, cardboards and all kinds of soft materials to sleep on. At daytime almoust everybody is still out working illigally to gaine some money. The building is almoust left alone with the traces of its occupants leaving intmate totems.

Photographs taken in Paris 2009

“Amen o Roma sijam ni andi havaja ni andi phuv” “We, the Roma, are neither in the sky, nor on the earth.” Djevria Rifati

Mahala Kosovo shows a part of the Roma Minority in Kosovo. The families I visited in summer 2008 live in the Roma enclaves in the serbian villages called Lapnesello,Preace and the town Gracanica. They are about 7 kilometers away from Kosovos main town Pristina which is dominated by the albanian population.

Photographs taken near Pristina, Kosovo 2008.

“Emergency, confusion, powerlessness can only be presented aesthetically, since their cause is the gaping wound in beauty’s side.”

Gerhard Richter, Note from 27.01.1983

Every war leaves traces, deep scars in the land and the people, visible and invisible.
The photographic portraits of Bosnian youths in refugee camps and orphanages made in their personal rooms point to historical wounds and the process of scarification. But they also point to the future, to that which comes afterwards, which these kids are creating for themselves.
The photographs show young women and men in their current environments and with the few objects that they possess. The emptiness around them and the utter impossibility of their situations are however very present and emotionally charged. Past presents future – the title of this work expresses an aspect of time, which appears in this context to belong exclusively to the process of scarification. No longer and not in its entirety, the issue here is one of threshold such for these young people busy growing up. In this series, motifs of the threshold and borders appear over and over again. In every image there is a door, a window, a curtain or a carpet, which reminds of a different time and a different place and simultaneously obfuscates. Behind the closed door, hidden by a curtain or swept under the carpet – there is always something more. In this way the scar is a symbol for that thing that it hides. Text by Antonia von Schöning

Photographs taken in Tuzla and its surrounding, Bosnia-Herzegovina 2007
www.pastpresentsfuture.de

“Every day is the same, there are no special moments.” Nevresa Cikaric, Tuzla State Orphanage

Past presents Future will be shown at the exhibition B<SIDES in the Kunsthalle Erfurt from 11.february until 21.march.

The onset of twilight heralds the kids’ time: because at night the high-rise community of Weimar-West belongs to them. Weimar-West, the city quarter built in the 80’s and isolated from the rest of the idyllic cultural city of Weimar, faces challenges like a high level of unemployment, an aging population, conflicts between foreigners and neo-Nazis and a poor image. Since 2001, the quarter has been peripherally integrated into the program “Social City”.

There is not much for the kids to do here. But, between the high-rises, the shopping center and the sparsely planted landscaping known as “Paradise”, they have found nooks and crannies where they can hang out together. They don’t meet in each other’s flats; but rather meet at twilight just about every evening in less than spectacular places in public areas – behind the supermarket, in front of a high-rise, a pathway with benches and a basketball hoop. This is the microcosm that most of them never leave. They are more concerned with themselves, their roles in their groups, their relationships, the latent boredom and the search for their own styles. Communities like Weimar-West can be found all across Europe. The ambitious projects for the creation of functional working-class communities at the edge of cities have been transformed to a social terrain of certain difficulty. The question of the connection between urban space and juvenile development is becoming more and more relevant. How do these children grow up in such communities and how do they perceive themselves?

Photographs taken in Weimar, Germany 2006

The homeless shelter in Ettersburger Street is on the edge of Weimar.
Managed and maintained by employees of Caritas and the Diakonie, it is the last hope for many people, such as those who have been foreclosed upon or the true homeless. Rooms are prepared for those who have been alcoholics for too long and cannot stay dry, where they can live and find support. Very few have contact to their relatives; a permanent melancholy hangs in the air. They often tell stories about their history, how they lived and worked. After German reunification, most of them had breakdowns, started drinking and ended up on the street. All of them came to the shelter with nothing but the shirts on their backs. Furniture, such as tables, chair and beds as well as clothing and bedsheets are provided. Every week they get a little money to buy food and drinks. Many of them prefer not to leave; some of them do occasionally go into the city for a walk. All of them go to the kiosk around the corner in order to buy alcohol and cigarettes. Usually they trade off and bring something for the others.  Thus they share each others’ burdens and still remain bound in their personal thoughts.

Photographs taken in Weimar, Germany 2006

Nathalie Mohadjer’s series Blood Honey documents  Bosnian refugee camps more than 10 years after the devastation wrought by the war. The title of the series takes its name from the Turkish translation of the word Balkan: which literally translated comprises the words Blood + Honey. The camps depicted in Mohadjer’s photographs (called Grab Potog, Jejevac and Prizsta) consists mainly of displaced agricultural farmers and their families who rely predominantly of food donations to survive. Social strife is prevalent in refugee camps and these camps are certainly no exception. Abject poverty, drug use, cultural and ethnic displacement largely contribute to a life of instability and discord. Though some of these influences can be seen in Mohadjer’s photographs, there also exists a strong sense of vibrancy and hope. Displayed in the faces and interiors of Grab Potog exists a perseverance that can only be found in the face of extreme adversity.
Text by Ben Alper

Photographs taken near Tuzla and Srebrenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina 2004/05

After a travel to Sarajevo for my first time in 2001, I decided to go back to Bosnia-Herzegovina in Winter 2004/05 to document daily life in refugee camps around Tuzla.
The refugees living in these camps originally come from Srebrenica and its surrounding. I was interested in the living conditions ten years after the end of the war. For this project I had contacted the Bosnian NGO Snaga-Zene, an organization that essentially provides medical aid and does social work in the refugee camps. The photographic documentation that came out of is called „Blood and Honey « , what means Balkan in Turkish. As a project, it not only marks the beginning of my work as a documentary photographer, but also awakened a profound attraction to the Balkan region, its people and their stories.

In the following years, I have continued producing photographic series, either working with the support of local NGOs or on my own. In April 2007, I graduated from the Bauhaus with a book project called „past present future“, working together with the graphic designer Nora Kreissl. It is a combination of portraits and interviews with adolescent girls and boys who live in refugee camps or orphanages in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Since my graduation, I have been living in Paris and working as a freelance photographer for several Magazines and companies. I also started developing a new project that would take me back to the Balcans. A scholarship from the DAAD (German Academic Exchange) enabled me to go to Kosovo, just after it had achieved independency in march 2008.

Since January 2009 I am a masterstudent of reportage and documentary photography at the London University of Arts and Communikation (LCC). In spring 2009 I realised a Serie about the Garde Républicaine in Paris.

I spent two months (july and august 2009) in Burundi, east Africa, working together with the Documentary writer Laura Gabrielle Dix in cooperation with several aid organizations like NRC (Norwegian Refugee Council), A.PRO.D.H (Association pour la Protection des Droits Humains et des personnes Détenues) and ABDP (Association burundaise pour la défence des droits des prisonniers). Our work is about the repatriation of Burundian refugees, the Justice system- with special focuss of the situation in some of the many small prisoncells and the situation of the ex FNL (Forces for National Liberation) combattants.

Based in Paris, France

Education
1996–1997 Overnewton Community College, Melbourne, Australia
1997–2000 Abitur, Jacob Grimm Schule, Kassel
2000–2001 Art History and Philosophy, University Gesamthochschule, Kassel
2001 Visual Communication, main subject Photography, Bauhaus University Weimar
2005 March until October, Erasmus scholarship, Class of Photography of Gabriele Rothemann, University for applied arts, Vienna
2007 Diplom, Bauhaus University Weimar
since January 2009 online master course of reportage and documentary photography at the London University of Arts and Communication / LCC

Freelance Work
Brand Eins, le Monde, Boucheron, Renault, Visual Link, etc.

Scholarships
2005 November, Member of the “Asia Europe Forum for Young Photographers”, Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris
2008 DAAD arts scholarship

Solo exhibitions
2005 Blood+Honey, Gaswerk, Weimar
2005 Blood+Honey, Frauenzentrum, Weimar
2007 Past presents Future, Villa von Dürkheim, VdV, Weimar
2008 Past presents Future, Galerie Chambre à Part, Strasbourg
2008 Blood+Honey, Goethe-Institut Lyon, septembre de la photographie

Group Exhibitions
2003 Billboards draussen ankommen, A-Z Shop Gallery, Weimar
2004 Schleier, K&K Kiosk for Arts and Fashion, Weimar
2004 Mehrfachbelichtet, Gallery of Fine Arts, Berlin
2004 Kunst-Ware, Gallery of Fine Arts, Berlin
2005 European New Year, Amsterdam
2006 Night of the Museums, Gaswerk, Weimar
2006 Kaunas Foto Festival, Kaunas, Lithuania
2008 Food for your Eyes, Month of photography, Paris
2008 Food for your Eyes, Month of photography, Vienna
2009 Les Visas d`ANI, Galerie Bar Floréal, Paris

Publications
2005 Port Magazine 02
2005 Camera Austria 91/2005
2005 Yearbook of Bauhaus-Universität Weimar
2005 Asia Europe Forum For Young Photographers Booklet
2006 Image Book presenting Bauhaus University Weimar
2006 Publication of Kaunas Foto Festival
2008 Catalogue of „Blut+Honig“ Goethe Institut Lyon
2008 Catalogue of the festival „septembre de la photograhpie Lyon“

Solo Books
2007 Past presents future (view under www.pastpresentsfuture.de, in german)

Languages
german native language, english fluent, french fluent