The fourth international festival "Hello, Armenia" starts with the photo exhibition "Artsakh - lost in peace"

Arax Foundation - Plovdiv invites you to the first of a series of cultural events within the Fourth International Festival "Hello, Armenia" - Photo exhibition "Artsakh - lost in peace" with a photographer - Gilad Sade, Israel. The opening is on 5 May 2021 from 19.00 h. in Tsar Simeon's Garden in Plovdiv, next to the fountain of Demeter.

Gilad Sade is a traveling documentary photographer and cinematographer who grew up in the West Bank, one of the most violent areas in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His interest in photography dates back to 2007, when he began documenting his experience as a member of the extremist Hiltop youth movement. The difficulties he is experiencing in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are changing his worldview. Freed from illusions, he leaves the movement and his country.

Gilad focuses on raising human awareness and rights around the world. He has documented life in Israel and Palestine, post-communist Kosovo, Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria, Abkhazia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republika Srpska, Albania, Ukraine, Romania and Serbia.

Gilad has lived in Nagorno-Karabakh for some time and since 2015 has been filming and listening to stories of ethnic Armenians living there. When the war began in 2020, he was one of the first journalists in the field and remained in the region for several months after the war, covering the aftermath of the war.

Gilad's works can be followed on Instagram and twitter @sadegilad. You can view his new photo book on the website: giladsade.com.

The author himself shares: "This photo exhibition will take you to a unique land inhabited by proud ethnic Armenians, who have inhabited it for more than 3,000 years. A land with exceptional culture, with huge potential, known to few, mysterious to the rest of the world. The Hadrut region in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomy tells the most interesting story in the disintegrating Soviet Union.

Situated between empires that survived the Mongol, Persian, Turkish and Soviet invasions, the Black Mountain Garden is bisected at the end of the Caucasus Mountains.

The complex of churches and monasteries in the region are built on the tops of the mountains and in the valleys around the settlements. All are used as a chain of communication and protection in the mountains, which is practically impossible to cross.