by photographer German Avagyan
2002 FiftyCrows PhotoFund Winner

This project documents the lives of mentally disabled Armenians who are kept hidden from society, enclosed within the confines of institutions that provide them only the barest necessities. This project began in 1997 when a few of the author’s photos appeared in a Yerevan-based newspaper. Response from the readers ranged from outcry and indignation to expressions of concern and compassion. Since that time, the author has continued to visit and photograph the individuals living in these institutions. At the Vardeniz institution, he has established a rapport with the patients and their qualities that can be difficult to find among members of Armenia’s “healthy” sectors: kindness, innocence, humaneness.

The author/photographer wishes to live among these people, to gather a full complement of photographs from Vardeniz and Armenia’s other institutions in order to prepare material that may be used for publication. Once the author has a satisfactory collection of photographs that tell the stories of each institution’s population, he will then approach publishing houses. Ultimately, the goal of collecting these photographs will be to raise awareness, both in Armenia and within the enormous Armenian diaspora in the US. The author takes as his inspiration the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which played a decisive role in reforming the backward, inhumane methods used in American psychiatric hospitals for “treating” the mentally ill. Now that Armenia is out from under the yoke of the Soviet Union and communism, the time has come for changes and improvements to begin in the Armenian approach to assisting and caring for the mentally disabled. The author’s completed set of photographs will provide testimony and inspiration for just such changes to begin.