Chichek Bayramli – Island in the Mountains
Chichek Bayramli is an architect, who has been interested in photography for several years. She has presented a project called “Island in the mountains” which was produced in the frame of the Multimedia Lab Production Grant Program for South Caucasus Female Photographers May-October 2020 mentored by Grégoire Eloy/Tendance Floue at the Tbilisi Multimedia and Photography Museum.
With this project, produced during the covid-19 pandemic period, Chichek departs from her interest in uncanny suburban subjects and explores human relations within more intergenerational gaps in mind, the village specific architecture and women labour. In images that recall a fascinating glimpse of mountain life, she photographs figures posing within a nature reserve declared small rural town Khinalig, and the road inaccessibility allowed Khinalig preserve age-old traditions and language, houses and interior, and its vast surrounding mountains, including the actual trail from which the series takes its title. Photographic scenes address the ambiguous narratives probe tensions between human connection and separation, women labour and childhood, intimacy, and isolation.
Island in the mountains – a new body of work by Chichek Bayramli presents an alternative image of Khinalig, 5000 years old village located in the north-east part of Azerbaijan. At an altitude of 2300 meters above sea level and – 30 degree in winter, the ancient Ketch language-speaking Khinalig offers a natural environment built upland hillside, unique culture held according to the passed on from generation to generation rites, a fascinating glimpse of village life, and very interesting architecture of the houses with everywhere rich of underfoot colourful, decorated carpet patterns, and on the walls hang beautiful embroidery.
