We are our Mountains

“Armineh Johannes, the living memory of Armenia” — France Arménie (2026)

WE ARE OUR MOUNTAINS is a living archive of Armenian memory and a life’s work documenting Armenia, Artsakh/N. Karabagh and Armenians, by Armineh Johannes.

Through this work she recounts more than thirty years in the life of a people confronted with war, exile and pogroms; a people others have tried to break, but which remains standing – dignified, proud, unshakeable, like the mountains that surround it.

From the beginning of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in 1989 to the offensive by Azerbaijani forces in 2023, the photographer bears witness to the most profound moments in the existence of the Armenian people.

ARMINEH JOHANNES is a documentary photographer born in Tehran to Armenian parents and settled in France since 1980. Since 1989 she has regularly returned to the lands of her ancestors, in Armenia and Karabagh, to document the daily life of a people through wars, faith, exile and reconstruction.

She is one of the few photographers to have been present in the villages of Artsakh during the first armed offensives in 1989. Since then she has pursued uninterrupted work in the field, always as close as possible to Armenians. Her work has notably been published in the international press (Le Monde, the Washington Post, Libération, the Los Angeles Times, L’Express…).

Preface by Tigrane Yegavian – professor at Schiller University, specialist of the Caucasus, journalist and researcher.