Dayton’s legacy

Documents burned in the State Archives of Bosnia and Herzegovina after thousands of protesters set fire to government buildings. In 2014, mass demonstrations erupted against a system that lacks transparent decision-making processes and enables corruption and the entrenchment of political elites.

Dayton’s legacy continues TerraProject’s long-term investigation into forms of artificial democracy: those political systems shaped and sustained by external powers, where sovereignty often remains partial and unresolved. Following the collective’s previous work in Kosovo, this project turns its attention to Bosnia and Herzegovina, a country whose constitutional framework and political identity were not the result of an internal reconciliation, but of an international agreement imposed to end a war.

In 2026, thirty years after the Dayton Accords, Bosnia and Herzegovina remains suspended in a condition of chronic provisionality. It is a state built from the outside, administered through international oversight and veto power, and held together by various international players instead of a shared ideal of reconciliation.

Through access to fragile institutional spaces and encounters with the youngest generation, Dayton’s legacy reflects on the human and political cost of unfinished self-determination. The work observes how external governance shapes daily life, identity, and expectation, while internal divisions continue to pull the country in opposing directions: between the Eurocentric aspirations of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the political and cultural attraction toward Serbia and Russia within Republika Srpska, driven by the increasingly authoritarian and destabilising leadership of Milorad Dodik.

TerraProject’s photographic practice, calm and disillusioned, frames Bosnia and Herzegovina as a landscape in suspension, a territory still waiting to become a home, where characters move in scattered directions, without the guide of a unique and identified gravitational center.

The work was made possible with the support of the Department of Law at the University of Siena and funded by the European Union – Next Generation EU – Mission 4, Component 1, CUP B61I24000450006.

Flags of various Balkan states on sale at the informal Gradska Pijaca market in Brčko. A multi-ethnic, self-governing district, Brčko was established following the Dayton Agreement as a neutral condominium between the Federation of BiH and Republika Srpska.

Milorad Dodik leaving the presidential palace. Despite being barred from public office, he continues to exert significant influence over Republika Srpska’s political landscape.

Ajila Masić, a student of the Islamic madrasa in Banja Luka, one of the institutions of Islamic education in a predominantly Serb entity.

House of Representatives of the Parliament of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Since the Dayton Peace Agreement, the country has been divided into two federal administrative entities, each with its own parliament: one in the Republic of Srpska in Banja Luka and the other in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo.

Map of the Republic of Srpska on a building in East Sarajevo. Under the Dayton Peace Agreement, the eastern part of the capital was annexed to the Republic of Srpska, dividing the country into two entities (51% of the territory to the Federation of BiH and 49% to the Republic of Srpska).

Hans Christian Friedrich Schmidt, High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina since August 2021, in his office in Sarajevo. The High Representative is a unique and unusual institution: a foreign-appointed official with broad executive powers who can impose laws and dismiss elected leaders in a sovereign state. Its authority is increasingly contested by several political figures, especially the secessionist leader Milorad Dodik.

Players from FK Borac Banja Luka during a training session. The club is a central cultural and sporting institution in the capital of Republika Srpska.

The sports hall in Banja Luka after the launch convention of mayor Draško Stanivuković’s new party, PSS. The party plans to run in the 2026 elections and positions itself as a right-wing alternative to Dodik’s party.

Election campaign posters in the periphery of Banja Luka. Siniša Karan, a university professor nominated by Milorad Dodik’s Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) party, narrowly won the early election for President of Republika Srpska on 23 November. The early elections were called after the Central Election Commission decided to revoke Milorad Dodik’s mandate as President of the RS, as he had been convicted by the top Court of BiH for refusing to implement decisions of Constitutional Court of BiH and decisions issued in 2023 by the High Representative in BiH, Christian Schmidt, and was banned from holding political office for six years.

View of the city center of Sarajevo.

An abandoned train in Prijedor. Many rail lines formerly used for transporting minerals were shut down after the closure of several mines in the region.

Belma Lepir-Cviko, member of the polling station in Novo Sarajevo municipality, during the voting operations in absence for the early presidential elections of the Republic of Srpska. Here, 66 people were registered, only one voted.

A stencil depicting Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladić on the wall of Gradski Stadion in Banja Luka. Mladić was convicted of genocide and war crimes by ICTY, yet remains a celebrated figure among certain nationalist circles.

Entrance to the Main Hall, which hosts the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The parliament building and this hall were destroyed during the war of the 1990s and were later rebuilt, following the architectural style of the former Yugoslav.

View of the Church of St. Luke the Evangelist, a Catholic church in Alipašino Polje, a large planned residential neighborhood in Sarajevo.

Jakob Finci, former ambassador, politician, and president of the Jewish Community of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Mr. Finci appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, arguing that Bosnia’s Constitution violates the European Convention on Human Rights. The Court ruled that the Bosnian Constitution and electoral law discriminate against minority groups, including Jewish and Roma citizens.

Signboard of a restaurant with an image of Vladimir Putin near Banja Luka, reflecting the strong pro-Russian sentiment common in parts of Republika Srpska.

Igor Bencion Kožemjakin, the hazzan of the Jewish Community, inside the synagogue of Sarajevo.

A bus stop in Banja Luka, the administrative center of Republika Srpska, one of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s two entities created under the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement.

View over Srebrenica, a town marked by the 1995 genocide and still navigating the weight of its divided post-war reality.

The polling station in Laktaši, the hometown and constituency of Bosnian Serb secessionist leader Milorad Dodik. In over twenty years in power, Dodik has built a vast personal empire. Much of this wealth has been converted into villas and assets abroad, including on the Slovenian coast, as revealed by journalists from an investigative agency.

Elvedin Selimović, the Imam of Žepa, during the Friday prayer. The enclave of Žepa was a Bosniak village in eastern Bosnia that came under siege by the Bosnian Serb Army during the War.

An IEDD (Improvised Explosive Device Disposal) operator from Italy’s 1st San Marco Regiment, serving under EUFOR, conducts a patrol on the outskirts of Sarajevo to ensure regional security.