SPOTLIGHT: YUVAL SHIBOLI—PORTFOLIO CONTEST WINNER

In the forgotten shadows of crumbling monuments, photographer Yuval Shiboli captures history not as it was, but as it remains—silent, solemn and profoundly human. His project, Memorials of Others, focuses on the Spomeniks, strikingly modernist monuments built in the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the 1960s and 1980s to honor victims of World War II. With startling clarity, his images shed new light on these long-neglected monuments, foregrounding their historical and emotional gravitas.

For Shiboli, architecture serves as a “frozen mirror from the past,” reflecting the social and political climate of its time. His fascination with architecture stems from its power to convey the context and spirit of its era. “Most people take the buildings around them for granted,” he explains, “but they are mirrors from the past, telling stories of how things used to be.” With each photograph, Shiboli connects these historical threads with his personal thoughts, capturing both the physical structures and the stories they hold.

The Spomeniks, designed by some of Yugoslavia’s most respected artists, were meant to commemorate victims of Nazi and Fascist occupation and celebrate partisan resistance. After Yugoslavia’s disintegration, the monuments were abandoned, falling into neglect. Shiboli seeks to reclaim the meaning, historical significance and dignity of these monuments, which are too often reduced to backdrops for fashion shoots or films with scant regard for their original purpose.

Shiboli’s connection to these monuments is shaped by his family’s history. As an Israeli Jew with relatives who perished in the Holocaust, the stories of resistance and survival resonate strongly with him. “All this came to life when I visited the Spomeniks,” Yuval reflects, speaking of the emotional gravity these sites hold for him. The tension between the atrocities of the past and the peaceful present is central to his work.

At Bubanj Hill, where sculptor Ivan Sabolic designed a trio of fists rising defiantly into the sky, Shiboli contrasts the resilience of the monument against the park’s calm backdrop. At Jasenovac, Bogdan Bogdanovic’s 24-meter stone flower symbolizes reconciliation, a bold statement in a place of immense suffering. Shiboli presents two images of the monument: one embracing Bogdanovic’s message of beauty and hope, the other reflecting the site’s emotional weight.

Shiboli’s dramatic style is achieved through selective exposure blending. By combining multiple exposures, he is able to manipulate light and shadow to enhance the emotional tone. The lighting choices highlight the monuments’ bold forms while suggesting their fading relevance. The use of light and shadow also serves as a metaphor for the fragility of memory. Shiboli’s photographs emphasize the Spomeniks’ beauty and decay, showing how they seem to be disappearing from view and from society’s consciousness. Depicting these monuments in dramatic light leads viewers to confront the fragility of memory and the passage of time.

This conceptual duality is perhaps most evident in his images of Jasenovac’s flower monument. Designed to inspire reconciliation, the flower is shown in one image as a beacon of hope, while a second image challenges this idealism, questioning whether beauty alone can overcome the horrors of the past.

On a broader level, Shiboli’s documentation of the Spomeniks led him to reflect on Holocaust remembrance. Upon returning from his trip, he visited Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Center, and saw a monument to Jewish Soldiers and Partisans that struck him as “the last Spomenik.” This moment provided personal closure to his project, linking the Yugoslav Spomeniks with his identity as a descendant of Holocaust survivors.

Ultimately, Shiboli invites viewers to engage with these “frozen mirrors,” not just as relics of the past, but as ongoing dialogues between memory, history and personal reflection. His work bridges the architectural and emotional, urging us to reconsider the monuments we pass by and the stories they hold. “In the end, it’s not just about the buildings. It’s about how we choose to remember.”