Post-War Truths

It’s something that many people around the world know only too well – war is only half the story. And it’s something the people of Armenia have known for a long, long time.

This project, Post-War Truths, explores the most recent aftermath that broods over the country today – the full-fledged war that broke out in 2020 with Azerbaijan over the long-disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. The six photographers whose work you see here are still haunted by the war and by what was lost.

War is only half the story.

You see it in these photographs. Here, a displaced family seeks to rebuild a sense of normalcy and security. There, a villager living on a newly defined border, struggles to maintain the way of life that has been handed down, generation to generation. Here, a soldier tries to forget. Everywhere, there is the memory of war – and the echoes of conflict long gone. Longing, loss, love, life.

In this project you also see other photographs which speak in multiple voices as they work to convey the truths of post-conflict. In photos, they weave fractured images – shards of memory, snippets of the future, the secrets of the land.

Post-War Truths is a collective effort, the determined work of six photographers who have carried their own pain with them as they seek to define the narratives that must not be forgotten, the narratives that will help light the way forward.

They understand that aftermath is the next chapter; that aftermath is, in fact, the prologue of the future.

These are narratives that must continue to be written – to be seen – because war is only half the story.


Sara Terry
Photo Editor, Post-War Truths
Founder/Director, The Aftermath Project

Editor of Armenian texts: Anush Kocharyan
Translation: Armine Bachachyan
Project layout: Karine Ghadyan