DOGMA – Armenian monasteries

• Photographer
  Aurélien Villette

Since some years, one of my principal researches around the spirit of place (Genius Loci) is the series DOGMA. My search for the spirit of place brought me to travel everywhere in the world to take pictures of religious sites or places of power. You will find here my series of monasteries located on Armenian territory realized this year. I wanted to show the varieties of these places marked by their geological environment but also by their geopolitical localizations. The different nature of the stones visible both by their color and by their texture, the openings, the motives of the bas-reliefs on the walls and the kashkars surprise with their shadow and light games. Concerning the geopolitical point of view as well as all the complexity of the Caucasus area, certain monasteries located very next to the frontiers are difficult to access and abandoned.