VIDEO: Justyna Mielnikiewicz: Old Rules and New Realities for Women in Georgia (youtube.com)

(youtube.com) Justyna Mielnikiewicz photographed and interviewed women of varying ages in rural villages, small towns, and the capital city of Tbilisi in order to explore the range of women's roles and experiences in Georgia. She began her project in closed, rural communities, where social rules are often more severe due to the persistence of traditional customs, peer and social pressure, tighter community control, and the regulation of women's conduct based on conservative religious values. More: soros.org/multimedia and here: soros.org/justyna mielnikiewicz

+++

Meet the Recipients of the 2009 Production Grant for Photographers from Central Asia, the Caucasus, Afghanistan, Mongolia, and Pakistan. In 2009, the Open Society Documentary Photography Project launched a new grant program to support photographers from Central Asia, the Caucasus, Afghanistan, Mongolia, and Pakistan. Nine photographers were selected from 6 different countries—Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Pakistan—to document social justice or human rights issues in their home countries.

In addition to awarding project funds, the program provided these photographers with two workshops in Istanbul, audio recording equipment and training, and a 6-month mentorship with world-renowned photographers Yuri Kozyrev (NOOR Images) and Antonin Kratochvil (VII Photo Agency).

Website: www.antoninkratochvil.com

+++

2009–2010 Production Grantees (soros.org/multimedia/production-grants-photographers-central-asia-caucasus-afghanistan-mongolia-and-pakistan)

Mery Agakhanyan (Armenia): Village Life in Armenia

Barat Ali Batoor (Afghanistan): The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan

Hayk Bianjyan (Armenia): Forced Evictions: Property Violations in Armenia

Rena Effendi (Azerbaijan): Oil Village: Baku, Azerbaijan

Valeriy Kaliyev (Kazakhstan): Migrant Workers in Kazakhstan

Justyna Mielnikiewicz (Georgia): Old Rules, New Realities

Karen Mirzoyan (Armenia): Suicide in Armenia

Akhtar Soomro (Pakistan): Sheedi Community in Karachi

Farzana Wahidy (Afghanistan): Life for Women in Afghanistan

PHOTOESSAY: The Unrecognized Islands of Caucasus (motherjones.com)

(motherjones.com) Civilians and soldiers alike navigate a region torn apart by years of war.


19 Photos by Karen Mirzoyan/Magnum Foundation 
Text by Hannah Levintova


magnumfoundation.org


Five months ago, the people of South Ossetia, a Georgian breakaway province, cast votes for their next president. Russia—the territory's controlling nation—had endorsed a candidate, but the majority went instead to former education minister (and anti-corruption advocate) Alla Dzhioeva. But her presidency was short-lived: The Supreme Court declared the election invalid, citing polling violations, and set a do-over election date—from which Dzhioeva was barred from participating. This week, Leonid Tibilov, a former KGB agent, won the new election.

South Ossetia is one of three contested republics in the Caucasus region. Its election chaos illustrates the impasse faced by these territories: All are trying to form autonomous nations, yet they can't build government without a stamp of approval from one of the only countries in the world that recognizes their nationhood. Their independence depends on Russia's support.

The Caucasus region, which straddles the Europe/Asia border, houses a medley of religions and ethnicities, from the Indo-European Ossetians to the Christian Armenians and the Muslim Azerbaijanis. During the USSR era, all that barely mattered; the Soviet identity subsumed regional and sectarian differences. But since the Soviet Union's fall in 1991, rival factions, finally able to assert their singularity, have clashed over competing claims to overlapping homelands.

The first to rise up was Nagorno-Karabakh. The Azerbaijani territory, which is populated largely by Armenians, declared its independence in the thick of the USSR's December 1991 dissolution. A few months later, South Ossetia—where several Indo-Iranian dialects are spoken—won partial autonomy from Georgia in a bloody war. And they prevailed mostly because Georgia was distracted by the separatist movement in Abkhazia, another breakaway province, which gained independence in a 1992 conflict that claimed nearly 10,000 lives and displaced a quarter million people.

Today, these territories exist in a legal no-man's land, largely unrecognized by other nations, and often dependent on neighboring states, primarily Russia, for survival. Over two decades, they've balanced self-protection with haphazard nation-building. Armed clashes with anti-secessionist forces are frequent, though rarely publicized in Western media.

Photographer Karen Mirzoyan spent three years exploring these territories, to expose and understand their singular struggles.

"My aim was to document the transitional state of these unrecognized republics in the region," he explains. "In the beginning, my task seemed simple. What I did not take into account was that over a period of three years, not only my story, but my way of seeing, was subject to transformation." He continues:

Most frequently I was simply sitting with people over a table, drinking, sharing food and the stories of our lives. I often told them about my family, my aspirations, of my upcoming wedding…in return, they loved and understood me as much as I'd come to love and understand them.

I did not want to compromise a single detail, the smallest nuance of the stories shared for the privilege of turning on a microphone, reaching for my camera or even taking out a pen. So, I was not working, I was not acting as a photojournalist…because when interaction is so warm and intimate, I feel it would be unfair to just take these heart-told stories and package them for retail.

Nevertheless, Mirzoyan did take occasional photographs. But he didn't depend on them: Mirzoyan also recorded sounds, wrote in notebooks, or sketched subjects who didn't want to be photographed. "I confess to photography being my excuse, my rationalization for these repeated trips," he explains. "[But] my aim is not to document. I just wanted to see for myself, to listen and understand."

This slideshow presents an excerpt of Mirzoyan's attempt at understanding life in the Caucasus' transitional pockets.

PHOTOGRAPHY: Young Photographer in the Caucasus Award - 2010 Winner - Karen Mirzoyan (magnumfoundation.org)

The Magnum Foundation established the Young Photographer in the Caucasus Award in 2009. The Award, with a $5000 first prize, recognizes outstanding documentary photography on a matter of social importance by a young photographer living in the Caucasus region.

The Award program is open to all photographers born after June 1, 1975, living in Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, the Republics of the North Caucasus in the Russian Federation (Daghestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, North-Ossetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karatshaevo-Tsherkessia, and Adigey Republic) and the Russian Federation regions of Stavropol Krai and Krasnodar. Existing United Nations standards on nationality and borders will be utilized for purposes of determining eligibility. Photographers affiliated with the Magnum Foundation or Magnum Photos and their immediate families are not eligible to participate.

The Magnum Foundation is pleased to announce the winner of the 2010 Young Photographer in the Caucasus Award. Karen Mirzoyan will receive $5,000 for his documentary photography project, Unrecognized, and will be presented with a statue by a Magnum Photographer at an awards ceremony held in Tbilisi, Georgia. Unrecognized will be projected at the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie in Arles, France, and at an R.I.P. Arles-Tbilisi event in Tbilisi, Georgia. No honorable mentions were selected for 2010.

This work focuses on Nagorno-Karabagh, a breakaway state in the Caucasus, hoping to join the list of republics that achieved recognition such as Kosovo, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The Nagorno-Karabakh war refers to the armed conflict that took place from February 1988 to May 1994, in the small ethnic enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in southwestern Azerbaijan, between the predominantly ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh backed by the Republic of Armenia against the Republic of Azerbaijan. The Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, a clash between the principles of territorial integrity and self-determination, is the longest inter-ethnic dispute in the former Soviet Union. Ethnic Armenians, the majority in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, have a different culture, religion, and language than Azeris. They seek to join Armenia or to become independent. Azerbaijan seeks to preserve its national integrity. The dispute has produced violence, mutual expulsion of rival nationals, charges and countercharges.

Karen Mirzoyan was born in Tbilisi, Georgia in 1981 and moved to Armenia in 1992. Mirzoyan is the winner of the 2009 OSI Production Grant for his work on the increased rate of suicide among young people in Armenia. In 2010, he was selected to be a Magnum Foundation Emergency Fund photographer as well as a scholarship recipient for the 2010 New York University/Magnum Foundation Photography and Human Rights Program. His work has appeared in The Times (London, UK), FOTO 8 (London UK), Telegraph (online), GEO (Italy), National Geographic (Turkey), National Geographic Traveler (Armenia), CNN.com, and CBS news, amongst others. Mirzoyan is currently working on a larger project on suicide victims throughout various countries such as Lebanon, Armenia, and Turkey. This year he also started a project about underground culture in Iran.

Mirzoyan currently lives in Yerevan, Armenia.


The Magnum Foundation's latest annual report can be obtained from the organization or from the Office of the Attorney General by writing the Charities Bureau, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271