Highways & Landscape 2 Armenia 2024
Highways & Landscape 2 takes you to Armenia. Similar to the previous chapter set in Georgia, this photo series consists entirely of shots taken from behind the windshield, offering fleeting glimpses into the temporalities between the road and the landscape: the drifting and driving processes of Passage and permanence, Extraction and Cultivation
Synopsis: The farther we traveled, the more monotonous the landscape became. Mountain, village, farmland. Mountain, village, farmland. Mountain, village, farmland. In between: dry, rocky stretches. Still, the vast, rugged terrain seemed to carry a faint echo of its past. Could it be that memory lingered in the land itself?
As the scenery shifted, a thought persisted: Armenia was the first officially Christian state in the world. Subtle yet sudden, with every mile past the Georgian border, traces of the divine, of violence, of resilience. And sometimes, far ahead, two glossy peaks appeared on the horizon: Ararat and its little brother.
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"Highways & Landscape" explores how landscapes shape and are shaped by cultural narratives. In Georgia, the expansive Rikoti Pass, cutting through lush and rugged hills, mirrors the country’s broader economic aspirations within the EU and Central Asia. Meanwhile, Armenia's much better-maintained roadways tell a different story: One of arid soils, endurance and resilience. Mount Ararat looms large in this narrative. It holds profound significance in Armenian culture, though it remains out of reach – always visible on the horizon, almost within grasp, yet forever distant on Turkish territory. Scattered memorials across Armenian cities serves as another solemn witness of the genocide released on the Armenian people by past imperial endeavour of the Ottoman empir e– persistent reminders of historical trauma and national identity
