Hrair Sarkissian

Hrair Sarkissian was born in 1973 in Damascus and lives and works in London. He makes large-scale photographs with the tools of documentary photography. His images start from personal memory and approach stories that official histories leave out.

He learned photography in his father's studio before studying at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, where he graduated in 2010. The series Unexposed consists of six photographs of descendants of Armenians who converted to Islam to escape the 1915 genocide. It was shown in the Armenian Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale, which received the Golden Lion.

Solo exhibitions include SALT Beyoğlu in Istanbul (2011), Darat al Funun in Amman (2013), the Sursock Museum in Beirut (2017) and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (2020). He has taken part in the Istanbul Biennial, the Sharjah Biennial, the British Art Show and the 58th Venice Biennale. He received the Abraaj Group Art Prize in 2012. Tate Modern, the Mori Art Museum, the Sharjah Art Foundation and Arter hold his work.