Film: The Art of Seeing, The Art of Remembering. Mets Masrik, Armenia, 2021 to 2022.
Premiere season · Sundays, 1 to 22 November
Mothers of Masrik
Four families of Mets Masrik stand in silence in front of their homes. Each film comes in two versions: in silence, and in their own words. One family a week, on YouTube.
Highly commendedTPF Social Documentary Awards 2022
Best Documentary ShortParis
Best Social Justice DocumentaryVienna
Best DirectionToronto
Broadcast on national televisionThe Blockade, Armenia, 2023
ExhibitedLondon, November 2022
Projects
Walk through the work
Grouped by place. Each project has its own room: a walk through the photographs, the field notes and the film. New places and projects join here once the first walk is ready.
Armenia · 2020 to nowSeven strands of work since my first visit, weeks after the war: community documentary, workshops with children, film, an archive and the protests in between.
December 2020After the WarThe first visit. Aid halls, an art class and the families of the fallen. Where it all began.Walk throughJune 2021The Yellow DoorOne afternoon in a Tavush border village, and the families who stay.Walk throughFilm and book · 2021 to 2023The Art of Seeing, The Art of RememberingTwo villages, four journeys, and the family albums they kept.Walk throughWorkshop · June 2021In Their HandsTwo days with the children of Debet: cyanotype in the field, Instax in the classroom. With Paul Lewis. Built for NGOs and schools.Walk throughFilm · 2023The BlockadeSixteen children went to Yerevan for a song contest and could not go home.Walk throughIn the editAfter the BlockadeThe same teenagers, met again in Yerevan, on what comes next.Start with The BlockadeProtest · 2020 to 2023In the StreetsRepublic Square after the war and after the election. Shown apart from the community work.Walk through
Kosovo · 2023 to nowFamilies, the kanun, and the ties that hold when the state does not.
In productionKinshipPhotographs, film and field notes from two journeys, with the producer’s trailer.Walk through
Family archives
The families own their photographs. I help them keep them.
Every project starts at a kitchen table with the family album. Each family decides what to share, how it is told, and what stays private. We scan the fronts and the backs, because the handwriting says who a picture was for. Then the archive goes home. It is slow work, in the tradition of Susan Meiselas’ Kurdistan, and it is the thread that runs through my photographs, films and book.
2,000+family photographs scanned, fronts and backs
20+families who chose to share their albums
2community archives, Armenia and Kosovo
01Earn the welcomeWeeks, not days, and more than one visit. I eat at people’s tables before the camera comes out.
02The family choosesPeople decide which memories to share, how they are told, and what stays private. The rights stay with them.
03Fronts and backsWe scan every print on both sides and record the story behind it, in the family’s own words.
04The archive goes homePrints, scans and films go back to the families and the village, before anything is shown elsewhere.
From the family archivesKhachik, Armenia, 2022 · Eastern Kosovo, 2023 · Scanned with each family, fronts and backs, and shared with their permissionSee all 120 photographs in the archive
A wedding. The Badalyan family archiveHarvest time. The Abrahamjan family archiveTwo young women with their books. The Gevorkyan family archiveAt the farm. The Harutyunyan family archiveA studio portrait. A family album, eastern KosovoIts back: Foto Putnik, Gnjilane, 17 June 1977Four young men in white caps. Eastern KosovoFriends outside the school. Eastern Kosovo
Add to an archiveDo you have a photograph from one of these villages?Families and neighbours can share their own pictures and stories. Send me an email and I will reply with a private upload link. Nothing goes live without the family's agreement, and anything can be withdrawn.
This work is self-funded, slow and made with the communities in it. Your support pays for fieldwork, translators and the prints and films that go back to the families.
Fund KinshipBack the next stage of the Kosovo film: a third field trip, translation and the edit. Watch the producer’s trailer first.Fund the film
Give onceStories outlast wars, borders and silence. Your gift helps local crews on location record them before they fade. Any amount, by card or PayPal.Make a gift
Become a patronNot charity. A wage. Your monthly gift pays local fixers, translators and crews on location, so communities tell their own stories. Patrons see the work first, in letters from the field.Give monthly
From the forthcoming book
An Armenian Journal
In 1947 John Steinbeck and Robert Capa went to the Soviet Union and set the politics aside. They wrote down what people ate, how they worked and what made them laugh. This journal works the same way. These pages come from my forthcoming book about Armenia. They are sorted by the things every family shares rather than by date, and they grow each time I go back.
The roadThe albumThe tableThe youngThe fireThe return
The road
In the late afternoon the children sit by the road and wait for their parents to come back from the fields. Nobody calls it waiting. It is simply what happens at that hour.
Mets Masrik, Armenia · The Art of SeeingRead the storyThe album
I carried a film camera and a digital one. The film camera made people patient. The digital one made them curious. By evening the albums were out on the table.
Global online premiere · the full filmSaturday 5 DecemberThe Art of Seeing, The Art of Remembering, 23 minutes, shown here for the first time online. Two screenings, so Armenia and the diaspora can both watch in the evening.
Screening one20:00 Yerevan · 16:00 London · 17:00 Paris · 08:00 Glendale and Los Angeles
Screening two19:00 Glendale and Los Angeles · 22:00 New York · 07:00 Sunday in Yerevan
Book a workshopHow to build a community archive with families, and turn it into documentary work, drawn from The Art of Seeing, The Blockade and Kinship.
Preparation: access, trust, consent and who owns the pictures
Research: fieldwork, interviews, and scanning family albums front and back
Production: shooting, editing and taking the work back to the community
Coming nextAn Armenian JournalThe full book: families, albums and field notes from Khachik, Mets Masrik and beyond. Publication date to be announced.Hear first when it is published
Next journeys
Where the road goes next
Projects in research and planning. Each one becomes a room above once the first fieldwork is in.
In planningThe Cruel Way, retracedFollowing Ella Maillart’s 1939 road east, and asking who lives along it now.Switzerland to Afghanistan
Image to follow
In developmentGermans of the Steppe (working title)Descendants of German families sent east, and the albums they carried.Kazakhstan
Writing and podcastEU StoriesLetters from the field and conversations about the work behind the pictures. What went wrong, what surprised me, and who I met on the way.Read and listen
Project roomKinshipThe Kosovo project has its own room on this site, where research notes and the archive will grow as the work does.Walk through Kinship
Press
Audience reactions, Toronto Documentary Festival (video below)WILDsound, April 2023
Interview: The Art of Seeing, The Art of RememberingMatthew Toffolo, May 2023
“This film is honest”: on The BlockadeAzat Dzayn
Article on The Art of Seeing, The Art of RememberingVudi Xhymshiti
Coverage of The Blockade in eleven Armenian outlets2023
“Nagorno-Karabakh, the republic that disappeared overnight”Wendell Steavenson, 1843 Magazine, The Economist, 1 January 2024
From the festivalThe audience respondsViewers talk about The Art of Seeing, The Art of Remembering straight after its screening at Toronto Documentary Festival, April 2023.Watch on YouTube · WILDsound
On location in Armenia with the crew.
About
A narrator who lives inside the story
I am a British and German documentary photographer, filmmaker and producer, based in London. For most of my career I was an investor and entrepreneur, and that work took me to frontier and emerging markets. Now I go back to places like these with a camera and stay much longer.
My thinking comes from ethnography and anthropology. I shoot on film with a Nikon F3 and digitally with a Leica. I hold an MA in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography from the University of the Arts London, with distinction.
The work I return to most is A Russian Journal by John Steinbeck and Robert Capa, and the archive projects of Susan Meiselas.
Commissions and partnershipsFor NGOs, foundations, editors and broadcasters who need a community story told with care.
One practice, three namesEthnophotography is my documentary work and this site. Five Mountain Films is the name my films are produced under. Up 2 Imagination is my commissioned and client photography.Other workStreet, event, fashion and portrait photography, including London series such as Midnight Oil, lives on my commissions site.See commissioned work
Contact
Write to me
Screenings, talks, workshops, commissions or a family photograph you would like to share. I read every message and reply within a week.
December 2020
After the War
The first visit. Aid halls, an art class and the families of the fallen. Where it all began.
Walk through
June 2021
The Yellow Door
One afternoon in a Tavush border village, and the families who stay.
Walk through
Film and book · 2021 to 2023
The Art of Seeing, The Art of Remembering
Two villages, four journeys, and the family albums they kept.
Walk through
Workshop · June 2021
In Their Hands
Two days with the children of Debet: cyanotype in the field, Instax in the classroom. With Paul Lewis. Built for NGOs and schools.
Walk through
Film · 2023
The Blockade
Sixteen children went to Yerevan for a song contest and could not go home.
Walk through
In the edit
After the Blockade
The same teenagers, met again in Yerevan, on what comes next.
Start with The Blockade
Protest · 2020 to 2023
In the Streets
Republic Square after the war and after the election. Shown apart from the community work.
Walk through
In production
Kinship
Photographs, film and field notes from two journeys, with the producer’s trailer.
Walk through
The road
The album
The Blockade
Artsakh, 2023. Sixteen children, thirty days stranded in Goris. Broadcast on Azatutyun, Artsakh TV, Hayastan 2 and Yerkir Media. Walk through the film.
Kinship
Kosovo, in production. The producer’s trailer, made to raise funds for the film.
Artsakh: No to Ethnic Cleansing
London, 30 September 2023. The diaspora at the gates of Downing Street, days after Artsakh emptied.
