Gohar Martirosyan

Gohar Martirosyan is an Armenian artist and filmmaker based in Paris. A graduate of Le Fresnoy, her research-based practice explores the connections between displacement, territorial loss, ecological transformation, and geopolitical upheavals. She develops speculative methods for reconstructing inaccessible territories—which she calls “lands of no return”—using archival fragments, environmental traces, and site-specific testimonies. Drawing on hydrofeminist thought, field research, and media archaeology, her work conceives of landscapes as living entities that reveal contested histories, ecological interdependencies, and fragmented memories.

His project at Villa Medici, titled The River That Knows Too Much, is an immersive cinematic installation that envisions the Araxes River as a witness whose continuous flow transcends the territorial boundaries imposed upon it. A border river flowing through several political territories, the Arax bears a deep scar along its course, yet remains a single, unified hydrological system. Drawing on sensory data collected using hydrophones, geophones, satellite data, Lidar surveys, and fieldwork, the project explores the river’s DNA: its rhythms, its intensities, its molecular underwater pains, and its modes of presence, beyond anthropocentric narratives.