November 22, 7 PM
Nikola Radošević Gallery (Delijska 3, Uskočka 5)
War Without War is the long-term photographic project of Swiss photographer Meinrad Schade, developed over more than two decades in places where war has, formally, ended—yet has never truly disappeared. His work is a visual portrait of societies that exist in the space between war and peace. Through different chapters, Schade examines what happens when war withdraws from the headlines but remains deeply embedded in the fabric of everyday life.
Photographs made in Chechnya, Ingushetia, Kazakhstan, Nagorno-Karabakh, Ukraine, Israel, and Palestine depict a world in which “post-war” and “pre-war” are not opposites but often simultaneous conditions.
The exhibition presents the series Unresolved, the newest chapter of this project and Schade’s most profound engagement with one of the world’s most complex conflicts: the Israeli–Palestinian one. During seven months spent in Israel, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and Gaza (2013–2017), the author moved between communities living within radically different political structures, narratives, and emotional realities. This daily shift in perspective—military training for young Israelis in the morning and the funeral of a Palestinian teenager in the afternoon—became central to his approach.
Schade’s gaze is directed toward what usually escapes public attention. He photographs what endures: scars in the landscape, architectures of control, gestures of fear and resistance, and the learned strategies of survival. The title Unresolved points to the essence of a conflict that—despite numerous peace processes—remains unresolved politically, emotionally, and historically. But it also suggests something more: the persistent question of how to live in a place where the past is not a closed chapter and the future remains uncertain.
Unresolved is a photographic essay about life in a space where conflict is not seen in explosions but in the everyday—and it raises a fundamental question: When does war really begin, and when does it end?
About the Author
Meinrad Schade (1968, Switzerland), originally trained as a biologist, completed his photographic studies with the Gruppe Autodidaktischer FotografInnen and later specialized in photojournalism at the Swiss School of Journalism (MAZ). After working for St. Galler Tagblatt, he became an independent portrait and documentary photographer in 2002. A major retrospective of his project War Without War was presented in 2015 at Fotostiftung Schweiz in Winterthur. The accompanying monograph received the Silver Medal at the German Photobook Award. Schade is the recipient of numerous international prizes, including the Swiss Photo Award, the n-ost Reportage Prize, and the Deutsche Fotobuchpreis (Silver Medal, 2015). He is a member of the Deutsche Fotografische Akademie (DFA) and teaches regularly at universities and photography programs (MAZ, HWZ, Zürich University).
Meinrad Schade is considered one of the leading contemporary Swiss documentary photographers, known for long-term projects that investigate the traces of conflict in society and landscape.
