Windows series
2008 - 2010
Beyond the wall, the door, the window and the bay, there are lives of human beings tired from the on going frequency of the day and the night.
Blank faces in the windowpane, becoming clear in seconds of light, disappearing and returning again by a new light from a passing car… Perhaps they’re there to hear or maybe to see.
The night is still on and behind this locked windowpane, the face is still there, probably waiting for someone who may never come.
The face is still staring out and some of its features are reflected inside of me to see.
Close to my window there is a wide-open window.
Homage to Opeth of their “Windowpane” song.
The First Window, 2008. 105 x 80 cm. Edition of 4 + 2 A.P. Giclée print.
Untitled, 2009. 70 x 90 cm. Edition of 4 + 2 A.P. Giclée print.
Untitled, 2009. 90 x 70 cm. Edition of 4 + 2 A.P. Giclée print.
Untitled, 2010. 80 x 105 cm. Edition of 4 + 2 A.P. Giclée print.
Untitled, 2010. 74,3 x 105 cm. Edition of 4 + 2 A.P. Giclée print.
Around the mid-to-late 2000s, while I was still living in Damascus, I often wandered through the neighborhoods of the old city, trying to absorb the history of the place and the beauty of what remained. Other than being a place where we often used to hang out with friends, I was drawn to the quietness of these neighborhoods and to the friendly interactions among the people there. Walking through the narrow streets, past small shops and cafés and away from the regular city traffic, gave me a very different experience of the city.
My attention eventually turned toward parts of the old city that were destined to be demolished. I began photographing the windows of old houses that were poorly maintained and appeared to be approaching the end of their existence. Many of these houses were built using traditional techniques and materials, including wood, mud, and straw. I was interested in these traditional forms of construction and in the process of building them, which relied on simple materials and manual labor rather than modern machinery. As these ways of building were slowly disappearing, photographing the windows became a way of documenting the structures before they were lost.
I later photographed windows in the old neighborhoods of Aleppo as well, although my experience there was different. The neighborhoods I encountered were generally well maintained, and the windows and houses appeared to be cared for. At the same time, the culture of everyday life I encountered in these neighborhoods, both in Damascus and Aleppo, was different from what I had grown up with, having been raised in an Armenian family and accustomed to a more modern urban environment. This difference made me more conscious of the relationship between architecture, place, and the people who inhabit them.
The window became a recurring point of interest for me: a boundary between the private world of the home and the public space of the street. Looking at these windows, I found myself imagining the people living behind them—their everyday lives, their circumstances, and their relationship to these houses. I wondered what would happen to them if their homes were demolished, and what would be lost beyond the physical structures themselves.
Through these photographs, I was not only interested in documenting old architecture, but in considering how places carry memory, identity, and traces of lives that may eventually disappear. The photographs became a record of buildings in transition, but also of my own encounter with places whose future was uncertain.