Hrair Sarkissian is shortlisted for the exhibition The Other Side of Silence at Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht, The Netherlands (29 November 2022 – 14 May 2023). 

Hrair Sarkissian’s (b. 1973, Syria) conceptual photography focuses on deeply personal narratives that reflect the complexity of larger historical and social issues. In The Other Side of Silence, ostensibly serene, meditative landscapes and calm urban environments become stages for accounts of trauma and the expression of underlying socio-political realities.  

Drawing from personal memories, interactions and extensive research, Sarkissian aims to evoke emotional experiences, foster awareness and a sense of solidarity. His work considers what official history conceals and creates space for excluded voices to be heard. 

Last Seen (2018–2021) will be on display at The Photographers’ Gallery, alongside his sound installation, Deathscape (2021).  

Last Seen (2018–2021) represents people who have gone missing in global conflicts. In fifty photographs, taken in Argentina, Kosovo, Brazil, Lebanon and what is now Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarkissian captures the place where a missing person was last seen by their loved ones.  

 Each frame is embossed with the disappeared person’s name and the year they vanished. The images of domestic spaces are visual testimonies, archiving the memory of the missing as well as their families and friends, for whom time has stood still. 

Sarkissian’s first sound installation Deathscape (2021), Sarkissian’s first sound installation documents the work of forensic archaeologists as they excavate mass graves in Spain. Here Sarkissian attached microphones to forensic scientists undertaking a major excavation of mass tombs. The graves are of people who were executed by the dictatorial regime led by Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War in 1936, until Franco’s death in 1975.