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For his gallery in Enter 13, 27-year-old Karen Mirzoyan visited a forest alongside the Minsk to Grodno M6 highway in Belarus.
It is one of many in the former Soviet republic contaminated when an accident hit a nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl power plant in 1986.
“As a result of that accident, twenty percent of the forests in Belarus were affected,” says Karen, whose images show a variety of stones painted in graffiti-style amongst the trees, proclaiming various messages.
“I like the entire story as a whole, because of the contrast between the visual serenity of the photos and the troubling message delivered which are the key elements in the makeup of this project,” continues Karen, who was born in Georgia but now lives in Armenia.
His work has appeared in many publications including The Times of London,
Foto 8 , GEO (Italy),
National Geographic (Turkey), CNN.com ,
CBS news ,
LeMonde.fr , and National Geographic Traveler (Armenia).
“Over one third of Belarus is covered in forests, including the southwestern part of the oldest existing European forest - Belovezhskaya Puscha - a UNESCO World Heritage Site,” concludes Karen.
“It is home to more than 70 mammal species and 280 types of bird. Belarus is among the ten leading forest countries of Europe”.
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