Highways & Landscape 2 Armenia 2024
Highways & Landscape 2 takes you to Armenia. Similar to the previous chapter, this photo series consists of shots mostly taken from behind the windshield of a driving car. Images as fleeting glimpses into the temporalities between the road and the landscape, between passage and permanence.
The farther we traveled, the more monotonous the landscape became. Mountain, village, farmland. Mountain, village, farmland. Mountain, village, farmland. Dry, rocky stretches in between. Yet within this monotony, the vast and rugged terrain carried something else – an almost imperceptible residue of time. A sense that the land itself might be holding on to memory.
Subtle yet sudden, with every mile past the Georgian border, traces of the divine, of violence, of resilience followed. And occasionally, far ahead on the horizon, two glossy peaks emerged – Mount Ararat and its smaller counterpart – anchoring the journey in both geography and myth.
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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 foreign territory. Scattered memorials across Armenian cities serve as solemn witnesses of the genocide released on the Armenian people by the imperial endeavours of past and present empires.
