After the death of the beloved photographer and artist, Sebastian Tanti Burlò remembers his life and those he touched along the way.

Art can break your heart, but kitsch can make you rich – Zvezdan Reljić (1961-2023)

Zvezdan Reljić was nominative determinism in action. Slavic for ‘sun’, Zvezdan lived up to his name in every celestial way. He attracted people of all backgrounds with his gravitational pull, providing them with endless warmth and energy. One only has to read the countless tributes or attend his memorial to understand the love that he emanated.

Zvezdan was many things to different people: a father, friend, husband, photographer, printmaker, publisher, brother, boxer, dadaist, artist, lover, confidant… To me, Zvezdan was my kum, a Serbian term for godfather or blood brother, a “ziju tar-rispett”.

A lot has already been said about Zvezdan’s life and achievements, and much more will need to be written. At the time of his death, Zvezdan was the beloved president of the artistic co-operative Kixott, co-founder of EDE Books publishing house, and had only a few months ago wrapped up a successful solo exhibition JA, JA, JA! at R Gallery.

While helping me with my last exhibition in October, he was already formulating and discussing new printing and publishing projects. He was ever-busy, ever-changing, but ever-constant.

Coming to Malta

Born into a family of architects and engineers in 1961 in Yugoslavia, he graduated from the Belgrade Graphic Arts School in 1983, where he studied photography reproduction. After a 15-month stint of national military service in Montenegro, he returned to Belgrade where he worked in a friend’s printing press and, by the age of 26, he’d set up his own printing studio.

Zvezdan married Jasmina and already had their two boys, Teodor and Jovan, when war ripped apart his beloved Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, forcing him to leave and find safety for him and his young family. After time spent moving between London, Libya and Switzerland, he finally settled on Malta. Later, he brought Jasmina and their young boys to the small island, where their daughter Tia would be born.

Both Zvezdan and Jasmina worked tirelessly with an entrepreneurial spirit, determined to make a safe home for their young family. Jasmina became a sought-after seamstress and costume designer, while Zvezdan worked multiple jobs in printing, publication and design. They finally found a home in Panorama Flats in Sliema, which would become seat to the Reljić clan.

Throughout my upbringing in Malta, I came across most of the Reljićs individually, but it was when I became friends with Zvezdan that I learnt these unique individuals all belonged to the same family. 

I was 19 when I first met Zvezdan while helping deliver my then-boss’s set of old speakers to Panorama Flats. We climbed the stairs to flat No. 3 and the door opened to reveal a handsome man with thick black eyebrows. He showed me where to set them down and, after a brief introduction, asked in his low Slavic tone “trid kafè, xbin?” It was to be my first experience of his famous coffee-making skills.

In 2010, tragedy struck the young family. Jasmina suffered a sudden stroke and fell into a coma from which she would never awaken. She passed away in 2020.

It would be during this time of mortal limbo that Zvezdan returned to his love of photography. He converted his cherished wife’s seamstress studio in their flat into a photography studio and darkroom, ushering in a period that, unbeknown to him, would transform the Maltese art community.

In the darkroom

In 2014, alongside photographer David Pisani, the two began conducting analogue photography workshops out of Panorama Flats. I was lucky enough to be one of those to attend. They taught us about the mechanics of the camera, the principles of light and composition, the magical art of darkroom developing and printing. 

Every meeting would start with a variation of “Haw’ xbin, trid kafè?” Everyone would say ‘yes’ and he would disappear into his kitchen and set to work on his special Turkish coffee recipe. Every so often, choice expletives in Serbian, Maltese or English could be heard as he would have burnt yet another of his treasured cezve coffee pots.

The table would fill with old 35mm film cameras, contact sheets, negatives and prints. The dark dregs of coffee, staining the bottoms of mismatched cups, would elicit a reading from Zvezdan, sometimes serious, but mostly jovial. It would be around this table and in his darkroom that our friendship grew. 

As a mentor, he took me and countless other young artists under his wing. He taught us with excitement his printing and developing tricks. He made light dance and chemicals sing under the red glow of his darkroom. He discussed ideas and projects eagerly. He never put anybody’s work down, always finding the good in an image. He would always encourage us to explore, to push, but most importantly to work and to be in a constant state of creation.

His generosity knew no bounds

In the years that followed, it would be in that constant state that you would find Zvezdan.

Entrenched in his studio or behind his computer, pouring over negatives, printer’s pages, publishing new projects by young and yet-to-be-heard voices.

Panorama Flats became the epicentre to his creative output, which he unselfishly opened to many people. Most in turn would end up subjects in his next roll of Kodak TRX. His generosity knew no bounds, always ready with a Slavic joke, usually self-deprecating, sending him into guffaws of laughter. Yet, even in the lightest of moments, there was a melancholy behind his wonderful eyes. The loss he suffered of his beloved Jasmina would always be there. 

By then, his children had moved out and he took in people to fill the vacated rooms, sometimes for short periods and others for longer. There would always be somebody different sitting round Zvezdan’s table.

It would be through this transient state of living that Wiċċna was to be born. A collection of 228 photographic portraits, photographed and hand-printed by him, was exhibited and published in 2019. The project centred on individuals from different backgrounds, generations and ethnicities who currently reside in Malta, accompanied by a short caption taken from the individual’s answer to the often-complicated question, “where are you from?” Zvezdan would answer this question with a wry smile – “Yugoslavia”, he would say.

A life Quixotic

In 2013, he started EDE Books, an independent publishing house alongside long-time friend and photographer David Pisani, which would later be continued in collaboration with poet Antoine Cassar. They published various books, photography, novels, short stories and poems.

EDE Books won three National Book Awards for Erbgħin Jum by Antoine Cassar (2018), Varjazzjonijiet tas-Skiet by Nadia Mifsud (2022) and most recently Marta Marta by Loranne Vella (2023).

At every National Book Fair without fail, EDE Books would be there, manned by Zvezdan – a star among an otherwise dreary affair. 

Kixott was opened in 2019, as a cultural cooperative, bookshop and bar in Mosta. As president, Zvezdan, with the help of friends and family, battled windmills of COVID and insolvency to keep this space open. In many ways, it became a satellite to Panorama Flats. Zvezdan could be found working or making coffee at both addresses.

Zvezdan’s life could be viewed through a series of collaborations, his final being with Imogen Mann. Only a year ago, Zvezdan and I were alone sharing a drink of his own concoction at Kixott, when he suddenly said: “I’m in love xbin.” I looked at him, his eyes were bright and his eyebrows soft. “She makes me feel like a teenager.” Ending it with his trademark guffaw. And it was with Imogen that the next chapter of intense work and life started. 

2023 would prove to be an eventful year for Zvezdan. His solo exhibition JA, JA, JA! at R Gallery displayed a new chapter in Reljić’s artistic practice, imbuing his photography and printmaking with Dadaist candour. A myriad of publication projects saw EDE Books publishing a new series of their Chapbooks, all the while keeping Kixott humming with Imogen at his side. 

I was fortunate enough to spend much of September and October in his presence as I worked on my solo exhibition, during which he helped with the setting up and printing the hand-bound exhibition catalogue, all done through his new venture Štamparija Reljić. He and Imogen would invite me for lunch and coffee breaks in between painting.

There I was again, happily spending time around that old oak table, all of us discussing new projects even though we were deep in current ones. Zvezdan informed me that they would have to move out of Panorama Flats. The owners were selling the block to knock down and build newer flats. It was the end of an era, but Zvezdan the ever-constant was happy and looking forward to the next stage.

We weren’t to know then that the next stage would be for us to continue living without him.

In mid-December last year, Zvezdan’s big heart suffered a fatal attack. He died surrounded by his family, leaving behind not only countless friends, but a legacy of work and an unquantifiable contribution to Malta’s heritage. His is not only a story of an immigrant’s struggle to make a new home, but it is a story of love and caffeine.

Your laughter will always fill my heart. Rest well among the stars, Kum Z.  

Tributes to Zvezdan

Antione Cassar

Media outlets and personalities have painted Zvezdan as an immigrant success story, which is fine, but also quite reductive. The truth is, Zvez was “one of us” before he was even born. Dadaist machinations set him and his family through a freakish labyrinth that led them to their true home. 

The hardships continued, emboldening Zvez’s resolve yet softening his already generous heart. It has been consoling to read, in so many singular tributes, of how Zvez would spot and bring forth the inner beauty of each new friend, and not only with his camera lens. Empathy personified. Zvez would read you like a book – without judgment – though he wouldn’t shy away from slapping you with the bitter truth – and dry nihilist humour – where necessary for you to evolve out of it. Zvez’s profound understanding of the book and of human nature went hand in hand.

For those asking me whether Ede Books will continue, it’s too early for me to decide. There is a legacy to build on – three national book prizes, fifteen chapbooks in a year, the introduction of promising new voices – yet, I find it impossible to imagine the publishing venture moving on without Zvez’s artistic eye and magic touch. Working alongside Zvez, watching him birth books with his bare hands, was more important for me than the books themselves. Our connection went far beyond publishing. I was collaborating, revelling, growing with an elder brother. I wouldn’t have climbed out of bipolar depression without the long days I spent in the company of Zvez and Imogen, in Sliema and at Kixott.

And this is where language fails me. I feel like an orphan, yet no tongue I know has a specific word for one bereaved of a close brother or inseparable friend. I feel totally lost, hollow, useless. We had exciting plans for 2024 and beyond; Ċensa l-Mewt visited way too early. If anything soothes me, it is the knowledge that the past two years – though there were tribulations - have been some of the happiest and calmest of Zvez’s life. He was bathed in love and affection, and it showed. This is how I will remember Zvez, as a bountiful soul, calmly focused, creatively radiant. Malta feels more than half-empty without him.

Lisa Gwen

Zvezdan has quasi single-handedly shaped the landscape for black and white analogue photography on the island; many of those possessing and using a vintage camera, having done so after indubitably contracting the photography bug, from his apartment in sliema, where he held courses in darkroom printing and photography. I will always remember Zvez for his impeccable portrayal of the body – his human landscapes. His uncanny ability to hone into detail and nuance, to frame a limb or a ‘body crease’, often resulting in an abstract, ‘obscure’ composition… it was quizzical to look at his images, the uncertainty of the portrayal at play, forever mesmerising and magnetically attractive.

Charlie Cauchi

No pretence – that’s what I loved about him. About talking to him. Especially when it came to talking about making work. His deep, calming tone belied his inspiring, almost child-like enthusiasm for his medium. A champion of everything analogue. It’s ok to point and shoot. Just shoot. Shoot and feel. Thank you for reminding me that.

It was all about the process with him. Creation. Creating and not just focusing on the end result. In a world where everyone is obsessed with the perfecting their Instagram post, a click away from instant validation, churning out exhibition after exhibition: he cared about the act of making work and making work that made him feel. Even if no one saw it. Process.He always said photography for him was something he saw in black and white – that colour seemed to “aggressive” somehow. But even if his photographer brain worked in black and white, his images still dazzled with rare and vivid eloquence. 

He would often tell me that he has probably only ever shown 10 per cent of his work. Negatives thrown in a drawer for a later day, month, year. When rediscovered, he wouldn’t drag out these images, not for nostalgias sake, but to recreate something new:  probably so far removed from his original intention. Process. Thank you for reminding me that.

And he lived. No privilege – he was someone who totally understood that sometimes life gets in the way but you can still keep making. You made me feel OK to be me.

I'll miss that Balkan sense of humour. Dark, cutting, self-deprecating but still so funny. Like that first shot of rakija: maybe at first abrasive, but sweet and warm on the way down. To you. Ziveli.

Kim Sammut

Zvezdan gave me my first film camera; he took me in for three years when I needed a place to live, bought me Pizza Hut and Nutella when I went through heartbreak and threatened to beat anyone who hurt me with a funny Indian accent, gave me long hugs in the mornings because "it is proven that hugging for more than 30 seconds makes you happier"; he took me to the clinic every single day for a month after surgery and walked as slow as I did. He was my teacher, my best friend, the friend that sent me squatting slavs memes and showed me movies that became my favourites; he was a father figure, my grumpy flatmate, he was my family.