I’ve fallen in love with southeastern Europe in recent years. But when I was growing up, this was a deeply troubled part of the world. Some of my earliest memories of international events involve the breakup of the USSR and Yugoslavia, the fall of communism in Albania, and the conflict and turmoil that followed – particularly in Bosnia and, later, Kosovo.
The countries photographed in this series are some of the newest on the planet. Over the past few years, I’ve been visiting and returning to the region, seeking to better understand it, and to capture everyday life in the 2020s, a quarter of a century on from the wars in the Balkans, and at a time when tensions continue to simmer in the Caucasus, communities divided between whether to align with the East or the West. These are nations newly established, and communities still rebuilding, where ordinary existence sits against the inescapable recency of history.
I have been fortunate enough to travel to the region multiple times, and have been fascinated to see the evolution. These photographs – taken between 2024 and 2026 – capture Albania, North Macedonia (although no one says ‘North’ there) and Kosovo in the Balkans, as well as Georgia and Armenia in the Caucasus.
