Karabakh Memory

»During the war of 2020, when people left their homes, for me the strongest images were those of people who had dug up the bones of their relatives from their graves and burned their own homes. Both actions had the same goal: to prevent these memories from falling into the hands of the enemy. I remember a YouTube video which showed a man burning his house, and when he was asked why, he said, ›This is the end! It’s all over!‹ I am interested in both of these actions – the exhumation of bones as an attempt to preserve memories and turn them into a kind of souvenir, which symbolically, but also romantically and artificially, represents the past. And the burning of houses as a radical act of forgetting, which gives the person performing the ritual the feeling that they have the ability to act.«

History keeps moving on. At the end of September 2023, up to 120,000 Armenians fled from the Azerbaijani troops coming into Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) and went to Armenia, including Roza Sarkisian’s father. He packed his belongings, took a few last photos of the family home, packed some earth in a small mason jar and set off on the arduous journey. Director Roza Sarkisian developed Karabakh Memory around her family history, and around individual mementos – the curse and blessing of remembering.

World Premiere 25/April 2025

As part of 100 + 10 - Armenian Allegories

Photo: Esra Rotthoff