On December 5th, the Gallery Synthesis opened the photo exhibition Construction Troops by Garo Keshishian. It includes over 90 black-and-white photographs covering over ten years—from 1983 to 1995.

This period was extremely dynamic for the country – the end of the socialist era and the early years of transition, which often proved difficult to discern in the context of the specific photographs. For all those who remember these years, the photographs evoke conflicting memories of a confused time in which the old order and everything new that was just entering the country existed. This can be seen in the small details – uniforms, clothes, household items, and the general environment (streets, buildings, rooms), and can be read in the faces of the captured portraits. Garo Keshishian’s documentary photography reveals to us the world of the now long-defunct unit, with all the dramatic, absurd, sometimes comic, but distressing atmosphere that most shots exude. A testament to the times, as he said in his few brief words at the opening, they are often an uncompromising reflection of the reality of the time, which subsequent generations could hardly understand and feel. Perhaps for them, these photographs already seem like a distant past, like early photography from the beginning of the last century. But for Garo Keshishian’s generation, these memories are still alive.

The individual photos are not dated, nor are the people in them. In a private conversation at the opening itself, the artist responded to this criticism, as the question was asked repeatedly, that he does not like much text at photography exhibitions. In his opinion, photography should speak for itself. A wonderful principle, which today is often violated by the pretentious concepts of contemporary artists. In many contemporary projects, we see a total disregard for the artistic qualities of photography and art, at the expense of conceptual “trends” that are put forward as leading and overriding the works themselves. The present exhibition is different. The purely documentary approach remains the greatest value of this archive, a small part of which is represented in the exhibition.

It is also different because of the years of work and effort that Garo Keshishian has devoted to tracing life in a unit. Given the period, this has also necessitated a very specific approach, to the people, and those in power. He shares:
I struggled to gain the trust of the guys I was shooting. It was this trust that allowed me to recreate their daily struggle to preserve the human in them despite inhuman living and working conditions. The blatant ethnic discrimination that underlies the communist and post-communist construction troops in Bulgaria is evident throughout the series. But the strongest driving force that kept me coming back to them with my camera was my compassion for these boys whose only fault was where and when they were born.[1]

In today’s fast-paced world, very few photographers dedicate themselves to long-term projects that take years. Unfortunately, neither the environment nor the conditions today allow it. In a sea of manipulated, virtual photographic images, this exhibition offers the public a brief immersion into the world of the authentic, black-and-white image, distant and calmed by time, yet still close.
The
exhibition can be seen until February 15, at Gallery Synthesis, Sofia.
[1] https://photosynthesis.bg/statia/stroitelni-voiski-izlozhba-na-garo-keshishian.html
