US to host exhibition dedicated to Armenian vandalism in Karabakh

New York will host an exhibition on May 5 dedicated to the outcomes of Armenian vandalism in Azerbaijan’s Karabakh region.

Report informs, citing the Italian news agency Notizie Geopolitiche, that the exhibition is curated by Angelo Bucarelli, while photos and videos are authored by documentary filmmaker Fabrizio Conti.

According to Notizie Geopolitiche, 60,000 people lived in Azerbaijan’s Aghdam city prior to the district’s occupation about 30 years ago.

“Once there was a theater, a cinema and an airport. However, the buildings have already turned into heaps of nature here. Very few visitors notice signs of life here. All this astonished creator, filmmaker, documentary maker Fabrizio Conti, who decided to go to such a mysterious, dangerous, sometimes inaccessible place. Conti’s goal was to capture the despair of numerous warriors, as well as the devastation of the places abandoned by people,” the publication read.

“Conti's project is broad. Karabakh, in which Aghdam and other villages are abandoned, is just the first of several reports that will unite ghost towns around the world,” the message said.

“I first visited Aghdam in February 2021. I wanted to start my project from there. The territory has been mined, that’s why I was accompanied by representatives of Azerbaijan National Agency for Mine Action (ANAMA), which is involved in demining operations. It is difficult to express the whole situation when I first entered the once prosperous city. Perhaps, for this reason, I wanted my photos and videos to testify to the systematic destruction of Aghdam during the Armenian occupation. While gradually destroying it, the Armenian people turned Aghdam into the biggest ghost town in the world,” Conti said.

Thus, this urbicide, and exhibition pays homage to the most well-known systematic destruction in history - Carthage.

“Curator Bucarelli recalls that when Conti decided to visit Aghdam to make his contribution, pay tribute and revive the memory of Azerbaijan’s Karabakh region, he was walking in a silent abandoned city, defying the danger posed by mines planted everywhere. Today, that territory has no secrets for those who interviewed local residents for a year and a half, photographed and filmed. Conti’s photos and videos reveal not only a narrative ability, but also an artistic approach to connecting each photo, like a painting that does not require correction,” Notizie Geopolitiche wrote.

The exhibition will welcome the visitors on May 5 from 17:00 through 21:00 (GMT+4), which will include a catalog of all reports, as well as 25 photographs taken by documentary filmmaker Fabrizio Conti.