Armenia declared independence from the USSR in 1990. Two decades on, the young country is still finding itself, not helped by an ongoing sporadic war with neighbouring Azerbaijan over the contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh. French photographer Julien Lombardi first travelled to Armenia in 2012 in order to explore the enigmatic country of his mother’s origin. His dreamlike and fragmentary photo project, The Unfinished, reveals a nation reluctant to address its past and facing an uncertain future.[...]
On a second visit in 2014 I embarked on a series of interviews and discussions, aided by a translator, with people from different backgrounds, including an historian, a manual worker, a civil servant, a politician, an artist and a farmer. The interviews transformed my personal approach into a more collective project. We spoke openly about the history, memory and future of the country, which has only been independent for two decades. I delved into their memories, the towns and villages where they grew up and the places where they work — subjective perspectives and fragments from which I freely drew inspiration for my photos. [...]
I had the impression that I was experiencing a place that was evolving on the fringes, according to its own rules and notion of time. Armenians are an ancient people in a young country marked by the remnants of a bygone Soviet civilization. You come across timeless scenes in a setting that is occasionally reminiscent of science fiction: shepherds with their flock in abandoned factories, children playing in a fountain in a deserted town, train stations no longer expecting the next train. The atmosphere is very peculiar.
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