The magazine of the photo-essay
Jan 2018 back issue
“A free, really high quality photo-essay magazine. Fabulous!”
Stephen Fry. British actor, writer and film maker
by Ara Oshagan
My father died in June 2000.
A few years before that, he and I decided to embark on a project
about Karabagh: a remote mountainous area next to Armenia. A region
where the Armenians fought and won a fierce war of independence
after the collapse of the Soviet Union. A region still with militarized
borders and no political recognition. A place in transformation: the
people, the land, the very way of life in political, social, existential
upheaval. A place that is part of our distant homeland.
Until the nineties, neither one of us had stepped foot in that part of the
Armenian homeland. Both our generations were born and came of age
in the sprawling cities of the Armenian Diaspora: in Jerusalem, Paris,
Beirut, Philadelphia, Los Angeles.
Before his passing, my father and I made one trip to Karabagh together, in 1999. It coincided with the birth of my
first son. After his passing, I continued work on our project for another six years. And my every trip back marked a
new birth for my family and I. The project spanned four births in all. And one death.
And so this project took on a further meaning. Upon that land of our forefathers—there for over three millennia—
from within the people who were living that history, came a quest to find the father. Through the eyes and senses of
the emerging father.
Father Land is a project about origins and identity. A project about a place and a people emerging out of a dark
history, transforming, forging a new identity, searching for themselves and a new way of life. And also about a very
personal becoming, an emergence.
Birth, Stepanakert, 2006.
Taking the slaughter to market, Karin Dag village, 2002.
Home near the Iranian border, Lachin region, 2006.
Man smoking, Karin Dag village, 2002.
Choir, St. Gazantchetsots Church, Shushi, 2002.
Kids in front of St. Gazantchetsots Church, Shushi, 2002.
Town square, Shushi, 2006.
Construction site, Shushi, 2006.
Home, Stepanakert, 2006.
Man crossing street, Vank village, 2006.
Home, Stepanakert, 2002.
Front line trenches, Near Askeran region, 2006.
Town square, Karin Dag village, 2006.
Home, Stepanakert, 2002.
Holy Liturgy, St. Gantsasar Church, 1999.
