ENTRY DESCRIPTION
I have worked for about thirty years on stories in Armenia and Artsakh/Karabagh. This project which depicts the lives of a nation that lives in the shadows of mount Ararat, in a rugged land yet with an exemplary generosity, that has endured hardship throughout history, through genocides, persecutions, deportations, wars, loss of land, expropriations….and as part of this project I have worked on the displacement of the population of Artsakh following war and blockade….
In September 2023, following a brief war, about 120,000 Armenians of Artsakh (Karabagh) or the entire population of this Armenian ancestral land, were displaced and moved to settle in various villages and cities in Armenia. I took photos of these families within days and weeks after their arrival in Armenia; they all shared expressions of despair, sorrow and disbelief for being forced to leave their ancestral lands of thousands of years… Through my photographs I have tried to capture their emotions, and their sufferings and perhaps a glimpse of hope in their eyes for the future….
The war in 2020 ended after having killed thousands on both sides, including 5000 victims on the Armenian side, as well as hundreds of injured. The main focus of the project will be the aftermath of the war and displacement.

AUTHOR
I (Armineh Johannes) was born in Tehran, Iran and moved to France in 1980. In 1989, one year after the devastating Armenian earthquake, I went to Armenia for the first time. I continued to travel across Armenia for decades depicting the lives of my fellow Armenians; my humanitarian photo stories have been widely published in magazines and newspapers around the world, such as Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, Le Monde, Libération, L'Express, Photo Reporter…
Since thirty years I have been documenting the lives of Armenians in Armenia, in Artsakh/Karabagh as well as in the Middle East and around the world. I have worked on different feature stories in Iran, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, France, Italy….I also have a passion for street photography. I travelled to Artsakh (H. Karabagh) several times starting in 1990 and covered the first conflict with Azerbaijan which ended in 1994.
In February 1990 the prestigious “Le Monde” Newspaper dedicated an entire page to my work: (https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1991/02/09/armenie-1990_4012447_1819218.html
I currently work as a freelance documentary photo-journalist but also collaborate with “Les Nouvelles d’Armenie Magazine”, an Armenian magazine published in France.
I believe that you take the best photos if you feel a close connection to the subject that you are taking photos of, as that connection will highlight the emotions in the photo you are taking. I love people and enjoy capturing the daily lives of people I meet or some across…..I also have passion for street photography in all places I go to.

https://plus.wikimonde.com/wiki/Armineh_Johannes

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