The photographs from the Infertile Grounds series are marked by trauma, historical events and human experience. The locations in the photographs are not just beautiful landscapes but sites that have strong symbolism due to their historical context and the fact that they have, in different ways, formed the national identity of Croatia. Woods, fields and rivers are part of folk tales and myths, but have also become part of a rhetoric legitimizing political systems and ideologies. The meaning of many events and sites have changed due to altered circumstances, regardless of the fact that the place, even with human intervention, has remained the same, bare and similar to other places where nothing important has ever happened.
Some places are well known and everyone in Croatia, or in the region, will bring a whole range of general knowledge and media interpretations to their reading of the photographs. Other sites have only recently been discovered, although the executions took place after the World War II. Under socialism, these events were not talked about, and they were not investigated until the political system changed. Research is still being obstructed and no one has ever been held responsible for these crimes. Although the bodies are not visible in the photographs, they are present in the pictures and in our everyday lives. The actual number of victims on all sides has always been manipulated and used for political purposes.
The events of WW II were repeated in the recent bloody war in ex-Yugoslavia during the 1990s. Old victims were revived in political speeches calling people to arms. The photographs also show places that will never be marked by a memorial, thus making the photo the only reminder and memento.
The title of the Infertile Grounds series refers to our inability to face the ghosts of the past and move on. Instead, we are stuck in the same vicious circle of mutual hatred and accusations.