Hayk

Hayk (Hayk Nahapet) is reimagined here as the legendary founder of the Armenia, traditionally defined through heroic masculinity, nation builder and resistance. I prefered to take that figure apart and reassembled through fragility, emotional tension and suppressed desire. The archetype of the warrior-patriarch is no longer fixed in strength and conquest, but exposed as something more complex, vulnerable and internally conflicted.

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The photoshoot took place in the ancient city of Ani, directly at the Armenia–Turkey border, in an area charged with historical and political tension. Within this landscape, Hayk becomes a figure placed between histories rather than above them. A staged encounter  where intimacy interrupts inherited narratives of separation. In this gesture, Hayk is not only a mythic hero but someone who is brave enough to embrace connection where history has insisted on distance.