hold
Three-channel film, 7:19 mins, 2022
In November 2020, the State of Azerbaijan attacked and re-colonized the indigenous Armenian region of Nagorno-Karabagh/Artsakh. Before that, for thirty years, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, native Armenians held sway over the region and self-governed their communities.
This film was imaged and recorded in Nagorno-Karabagh/Artsakh between 2012 & 2016, before the re-colonization of 2020. It features the Agajanyan family in Stepanakert & Shushi: Benjamin, Nina, Edik, Aleona, Irina, Aris, Tavit. Background interview is with Edik Agajanyan who fought in the Artsakh liberation wars in the eighties.
To imagine the ebb and flow of colonization and de-colonization will create the space once again for an indigenous community to live, co-exist, thrive.