Since 2009, Ani Gevorgyan has worked with various news outlets and printers in Armenia as a photojournalist. Having graduated from the Department of Journalism at Slavonic University of Armenia, Gevorgyan often combines photography and art practice with journalism and political activism.

According to the artist, she began using the camera during the first years of working as a journalist at the Hayk daily newspaper. Gevorgyan recalls that ‘during protest actions there was always violence: policemen were attacking children ... there were always fights and beatings. And then when I started shooting these things, the pictures began to be published in the newspapers, so it became possible to recognise, bring to justice or at least publicly shame these people. As a result, I started to understand how a photograph can fix facts and become a document.’(1) While acknowledging the evidentiary role of the medium, Gevorgyan's documentary images have grown far beyond the limits of the reportage format. Over time, it has become more crucial for the photographer not so much to ‘hunt’ for her subjects, as to interpret a given event from a politically, as well as aesthetically located angle. Preferring the possibilities of the black and white format, Gevorgyan pushes the observed incident to the edges and sometimes outside of the frame of her photographs. Hence, the photographic image turns either into an anticipation of an event or a record of its consequences. Thanks to this approach, the artist reveals the significance of photography as a medium for the sensory perception and visual analysis of reality. Perhaps this is the reason why many of Gevorgyan’s reportage and news images continue to operate on a metaphorical and allegorical levels, when their factual and informational values have long lost their urgency. 

Having been closely engaged for over ten years in various civil and activist movements as a photojournalist, Gevorgyan has also concurrently taken part in artistic projects. Within this non-utilitarian context, the pronounced references of her minimalist works to the traditions of 1920s European avant-garde photography, assume new dimensions. By bringing the present political reality into the domain of contemporary art, Gevorgyan indicates that these two domains share not only commonalities but also have the potential to transform each other. Currently Gevorgyan works with Hetk (Trace) daily and in tandem with her documentary practice, runs her own commercial photographic studio. 

1) From electronic correspondence with the photographer, 14-15 October, 2018.

Vigen Galstyan, 2018