If you’ve heard of Aokigahara, the forest at the foot of Mount Fuji, it’s likely because of its tragic reputation – a place where many have chosen to end their lives..
Hrair Sarkissian’s haunting series of large-format photographs, currently on display at Wolverhampton Art Gallery, places us in the heart of that forest. We walk among the images as ambient forest sounds fill the room, immersing us in a landscape known as much for its beauty as for its sorrow.
Threads of red ribbons link the works together, based on the ribbons used to mark the path by people who enter the forest. The forest is so disorienting that people wouldn’t be able to find their way out without them if they changed their minds.
The volcanic soil makes the forest dense, and people go there to get lost in and be consumed by nature. These images tell us how intense it must be to walk through it. Seeing these dense trees and hearing the forest’s sounds becomes all the more eerie once you know about this place’s association with death. These are the sights and sounds many have seen and heard in their final hours, minutes, and seconds.
His forest is one of three rooms in this exhibition. In the latter two rooms, he includes works from the collection that resonate with him, though they are not necessarily designed to be part of his wider exhibition. While some of these works are powerful by themselves, I’m not sure they work, and I would have preferred his own works to be facing off with blank walls, with more space for their emotional resonance to sit with us.
Sarkissian’s art is rooted in personal and inherited trauma. He is the grandson of two survivors of the Armenian Genocide, both sole survivors of their respective families. He journeyed to Armenia, a country that shapes his identity. One video shows sweeping shots of his ancestral landscape; another captures Sarkissian watching it silently. On a third screen, we watch his father watching the film his son has made, his expression mirroring ours. It’s a deeply personal reflection on connection.
The final work shifts the tone, still centred on trauma but tinged with grace and dignity. In it, Sarkissian marks the final wishes of terminally ill patients, photographing the places they chose to visit near the end of their lives. Some locations are instantly recognisable – Rembrandt’s The Night Watch at the Rijksmuseum, Anne Frank House, and a synagogue. Others are lighter: a theme park, a swimming pool, a cinema. Some are utterly enigmatic, charged with private meaning.
Sarkissian visited each site at the exact time and date as the person named in the works’ titles, only in a different year. The result is a quiet, moving tribute—a celebration of final moments and lives we’ll never know.
Trauma and its relationship to the landscape are a core part of Sarkissian’s practice. I vividly remember his entry to the 2024 Deutsche Borse Photography Prize, when I stood in the darkness listening to the sound of forensic archaeologists as they excavated mass graves in Spain. It was a moving experience, and the three works in this show in Wolverhampton are equally impactful.
He always excludes people from his works, as our eyes would naturally be drawn to them. He wants us to focus on the place he’s captured and its power.
This exhibition of Hrair Sarkissian’s work isn’t easy to view, but it empathetically draws our attention to critical personal stories and highlights the power of art. The traumas he highlights made me reflect on my own personal losses, making the exhibition all the more moving.
Hrair Sarkissian: Other Pains is on at Wolverhampton Art Gallery until 22nd June. Entrance is free.
All Photography © Patrick Dandy courtesy of the artist and Wolverhampton Art Gallery.
