INTERVIEW - HOSSEIN FARDINFARD
When photographer Hossein Fardinfard (b. 1985, Iran) made his way to the Pankisi Gorge, on the foothills of the Greater Caucasus Mountains in Georgia, he wasn't quite sure what to expect. As an outsider in a region whose reputation of late had been tarnished by persistent negative press coverage and reports of extremist activity, the danger of hostile reception weighed on his mind — especially with a camera in hand. Nevertheless, Fardinfard persisted, determined as he was to document the lives of these people who had suffered the same misrepresentation and alienation he himself has experienced throughout much of his life.
In line with his humanistic, intimate approach to documentary photography, Fardinfard photographed the region, and others like it in Georgia, chronicling the unique lived experiences of the displaced communities he has long felt an affinity toward, resulting in two photographic series: Blackout, and A Piece of Peace. GUP New recently had the pleasure of speaking to Fardinfard about his transformative journey in the photographic world.
Image from the series “Blackout”
One could say that Fardinfard had a relatively late start in photography, coming to the medium at the age of 30 — although this seems to have only worked to his benefit: his backgrounds in IT, cartography and geomorphology have proved to be handy tools in his photographic arsenal. His years spent learning how to map and study the contours of our geographical terrain also proved useful to Fardinfard in developing his philosophy of interconnectedness between humans and nature: "The concept of this interaction between nature and humans — this was always fascinating for me, and it encouraged me this time to follow interactions between people and in society... pushed me towards that direction," he reveals. While there are plenty of potential parallels between the roles of the cartographer and the photographer, both of whom seek to visually depict our ever-changing landscapes both physical and societal, Fardinfard prefers to emphasize the observational qualities of both roles. "The observation phase, [is] where notions pop up in my mind and direct me on the right path to approach my subject material," explains Fardinfard.
Upon moving to Georgia, Fardinfard came to be acquainted with a producer who aided him in the discovery of the displaced communities central to most of his projects. One such project was Blackout, an intimate look into the lives and homes of Tskaltubo's refugees turned residents, in west-central Georgia. Once a thriving spa resort town, known for its radon-carbonate mineral springs and karst caves, Tskaltubo was especially popular in the Soviet era, with one of its many sanatoriums even built exclusively for Joseph Stalin. Nowadays, its position in the Georgian tourism industry is close to non-existent, attracting some 700 visitors a year — with the fall of the USSR, many of Tskaltubo's buildings are now weathered by decades of neglect, and have become overgrown with the nature that seeks to regain its territory.
Instead, the abandoned sanatoriums complexes — built in various styles that synthesize the classical architecture of the Stalinist era with Georgian ethnic traditions — now house thousands of refugees, caught in limbo, victims of the ethnic conflict of the Abkhazian war that began in 1992. Gross human rights violations were perpetrated by both sides of the conflict, leading to looting, murder, rape and the forced expulsion of Abkhazia's residents, in particular ethnic Georgians — up to 250,000 people were displaced by the war, with a fraction of them now rehomed in Tskaltubo. "If you enter any of those buildings," reveals Fardinfard, "you see that it's like a network of tiny cells and in each of them a family, or a person, alone, living there... I'd never seen such a thing, nowhere in Iran, even in Georgia it's a very unique place."
Image from the series “Blackout”
Despite having a roof over their heads, there is a distinct feeling that all is temporary, and that the space they occupy will never truly be theirs — decorative paintings hang in their living quarters, but the decay of the walls behind the decor, and floors beneath their feet, is both conspicuous and seemingly inescapable. When asked whether they felt the need to conserve and maintain their makeshift homes, Fardinfard said of the residents, "... the answer that I got from them was 'We don't have anything anymore to preserve. We lost our family, our land, our children, our everything, so there is no reason for us to stay here.'” In spite of the horrors of the residents' past, Fardinfard's photographs of them are neither theatrical, nor do they give into sensationality. Oftentimes, the residents are depicted squarely placed in their living quarters, facing the camera with an indiscernible gaze, reflecting the quiet observational quality characteristic of Fardinfard's documentary photography.
The rapport between the photographer and his subjects, which is the driving force behind Fardinfard's documentary projects, is one that did not always come easily for him — although the camera certainly helped. "As a fact, I am an introverted person, and for me photography was always the main reason to step out of my comfort zone... I would say that photography is always a trustable teacher or leader — it takes my hand and it pushes me to go out and meet people. I need to face people and their problems and their pains in person," he confesses. A project that truly tested his courage was the one that took place at the Pankisi Gorge, with the resulting photographic series entitled A Piece of Peace.
More than half of the residents of the Pankisi Gorge are of Chechen descent — many victims of yet more regional conflicts, and almost all of whom practice the Islamic faith. In 2002, reports emerged of the area being used as a base for the training, arming and financing of Chechen rebels and Islamic extremist militants. After being pressured by various governments to contain the threat, Georgian military units were deployed in the area, resulting in a crackdown on local strongholds of radical Salafi and Wahhabi Islam. Pankisi's residents were unwittingly drawn into the conflict — clashing with journalists and government officials, for example, or more sinister still: the children of some have succumbed to radicalization, and subsequently shipped off to join fundamentalist causes, with many never returning.
In recent years, however, the region has largely seen peace, although the lasting damage of negative press coverage has taken its toll — something that Fardinfard felt particularly attuned to. “I'm Iranian, and it has happened a lot that when talking with my friends, they ask me, "Can you travel to Iran? Isn't it dangerous?" — you know, such questions," says Fardinfard. "But the truth is not what you see on media outlets -- it was the same for me, this project, because the people of Pankisi do not have the best relationship with the Iranian government because of political reasons... so I was now in their position, and I wanted to go there and meet these people to see if there was some danger for me, or not... I wanted to challenge myself to get the answer that I always give to my friends. So I went there, and met very kind people, and now I'm sure that you should not always trust the media."
In Fardinfard's photographs for A Piece of Peace, there is a particular focus on the relationship between the residents and the fertile land which they inhabit. Demonstrating a mastery of colour, and a keenly honed photographic fidelity, Fardinfard's images resonate with a richly saturated clarity, grounded in realism and yet imbued with a sense of otherworldliness — like conjured up images of halcyon summer days spent far removed from the grime of urban life. The lush greenery that dominates his images is now attracting a growing number of tourists, and has given the Pankisi Gorge residents a renewed sense of hope that the perception of their homeland will transcend the less than ideal one attributed to it by popular media, and reflects Fardinfard's own sense of optimism for what humans can achieve when they work together.
"In cartography I learned that everything in nature is connected to each other — it doesn't matter whether it's a vast ocean or somewhere in the mountains -- what is clear is that all of them have these interactions and affect each other: if nature has this unity, then there should be the same story with people."
Finding the essence of this unity, and navigating the terrains of this common ground, is an undertaking that Fardinfard is not yet done with — he still has plenty to discover, even in Georgia alone. "It's not something that you do in one week, in one month, you know? For [the last] two years I wasn't able to go there due to the pandemic, but it had another consequence, as it forced me to work on myself. I mean, I was studying people, and now I'm studying myself.” Fardinfard is now in the next stage of his photographic practice, having relocated to Amsterdam, currently undertaking photographic research at the Royal Academy of Arts (The Hague) to develop the theoretical framework of his projects to come.