About

Dragan Saric is a sociologist-turned-photographer born in Yugoslavia. Growing up in-between cultures and identifying with a country that no longer exists, Dragan is deeply interested in the mechanisms and structures that have caused his own displacement. Embracing this in-betweenness as a liminal space — a place in-between arrival and destination, being and not being — he uses photography to tell stories that confront the viewer with liminality. His sociological background serves to analyze and further broaden these stories into greater narratives.

While Dragan’s earlier work reflects on ”the homely”, his current work takes a shift into its Freudian flipside: ”the unhomely”. By visiting spaces that seem in suspended animation — seemingly functional, but totally devoid of people — Dragan wonders why these spaces are synonymous with horror, ghosts, and subconscious fears. He subsequently questions how we can become estranged from these spaces: which we once called home.

Dragan’s photographic process involves a mixture of film, digital, and infrared. Closely resembling a cinematic approach — through color grading, spectral filters, and capturing invisible light — Dragan shifts and portrays images as emotional landscapes, concurrently shedding light on the unseen. Rather than a strict documentary approach, his viewpoint therefore more closely resides within the realm of poetics. Through his work, he questions what leaving behind and forming an identity means in an increasingly globally connected/fragmented society, contemplating themes such as identity, (be)longing, hauntology, and the (un)homely.

Part of The Photbookmuseum’s dummy award 2025, his shortlisted book ”Tomorrow Hotel” is currently part of the ongoing world tour. Among others, Dragan is also a participant in Fotodok’s Lighthouse program, and recipient of the Docks Prize from Passepartout in Rome. He has lived and worked in Taipei and is currently based between Soest and Amsterdam in the Netherlands.