Location
Sarajevo, BiH

Ziyah Gafic

Contributing Photographer

Ziyah Gafic (b. 1980, Bosnia) was born in Sarajevo and grew up during the siege of the city. He briefly became a refugee in Italy before returning home, crawling through a tunnel under Sarajevo airport to his father, a fighter in the city’s resistance. His project “Quest for Identity” is a catalog of objects found in mass graves, a document of crimes, and validation and restitution of the individual lives of his neighbors and countrymen who were murdered by Serbian soldiers and paramilitaries before being buried anonymously in mass graves. 

Ziyah is the Director of VII Photo and an award-winning photojournalist, author, TED speaker and contributor to National Geographic magazine. His photography focuses on societies locked in a perpetual cycle of violence and Muslim communities around the world. Over the past 25 years, he covered major events in the Middle East, Caucasus, Arabian peninsula, and Asia, and his work has received some of the most coveted prizes in photography from World Press Photo, Visa pour l’image, Les Rencontres d’Arles, Prince Claus Fund, National Geographic Society and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.