Svetlana Dingarac – Fortresses and Fortified Cities of Serbia

The photo exhibition by Svetlana Dingarac “Fortresses and Fortified Cities of Serbia”, will be opened at the Gallery of the National Museum Kraljevo, on Friday, June 19th, 2026, at 7 p.m.

The exhibition “Fortresses and Fortified Cities of Serbia” is part of a broader project launched in 2018, with the aim of bringing one of the significant segments of national cultural heritage closer to the public and preserving it from oblivion. Throughout history, fortresses were not only fortification and military structures, but also centers of political, economic, and cultural life, which is why they represent important testimonies of the past of the territory of today’s Serbia.

The project includes fortifications from the Late Antique, Early Byzantine, and medieval periods, with plans to cover fortresses from other historical epochs as well. A large number of fortified sites are known in Serbia, many of which today survive only in traces, as ruins overgrown with vegetation, often without access roads or clear markers. For this reason, the exhibition also has an important educational role: it points to the richness of monumental heritage, but also to the need for its research, protection, and popularization.

Within the project, the website “Fortresses of Serbia” — tvrdjave.rs — was launched, where photographs of fortifications, textual descriptions, interesting stories, legends, and other content are continuously published. The site also contains an interactive map that enables the display of sites in 3D format, searches by historical epochs and regions, and easier acquaintance with this important part of cultural heritage.

The author of the exhibition, Svetlana Dingarac, has been actively engaged in photography since 1998. She has participated in more than 150 collective exhibitions in Serbia and abroad, is the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions, and has so far organized eight solo exhibitions. As a freelance photographer, she has traveled and worked on projects in Armenia, Brazil, Syria, Cambodia, Cape Verde, Greece, and the USA. She is a member of the Association of Fine Artists of Applied Arts and Designers of Serbia, and in the Photo Association of Serbia she holds the title Candidate Master of Photography.

The exhibition “Fortresses and Fortified Cities of Serbia” is conceived as a traveling multimedia display, with the intention of presenting the richness of material culture of past times to the widest possible audience and encouraging awareness of the necessity of its preservation.