Irina Rozovsky: Mountain Black Heart

Irina Rozovsky: Mountain Black Heart
Category: Photographer Monographs & Art Books
Author: Irina Rozovsky
Publisher: Mack Books
Publication Date: August 2026
Print Length: 132 pages
Language: English
Price: paid paid paid

Irina Rozovsky: Mountain Black Heart documents a multi-year journey through the Balkans that began in the summer of 2014. Rozovsky started the project after waking to the sound of a brass band festival in a Serbian mountain village. She went on to photograph in Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Croatia, Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania. The book brings together images made across these countries without emphasising national borders, focusing instead on shared landscapes and social environments.

The photographs cover a range of everyday settings: railways, farms, open water, parking lots, fairgrounds, and graveyards. Rozovsky’s images show signs of both vitality and hardship. Scenes of daily life and labour appear alongside traces of conflict and displacement. The work does not follow a linear narrative but moves between locations and subjects, creating a fragmented view of the region that reflects its complex recent history.

Portraits of people and animals are interspersed throughout the book. These images emphasise vulnerability and endurance rather than heroism or victimhood. Rozovsky works with a loose, expressionistic style, often using natural light and informal compositions. Her approach allows for ambiguity, leaving space for multiple readings of each scene rather than imposing a single interpretation.

Mountain Black Heart is presented as a personal, nomadic project rather than a conventional documentary survey. Rozovsky’s text describes the work as a response to the land and its inhabitants, shaped by repeated visits and extended time in the field. The title refers to the emotional tone she encountered during her travels, combining moments of joy and celebration with an awareness of past and ongoing violence. The book assembles these elements into a single volume that maps a region through accumulated impressions rather than through political or geographic categories.

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