“Agdam must be destroyed. Imagine giving Karabakh” is the title of the photography book by Fabrizio Conti which collects over 150 shots through which the author tells in images the distant and tormented region of the Southern Caucasus. An unknown land, located in the territory of Azerbaijan on the border with Armenia, which has always been disputed and the scene of a very long conflict between the two states. The book was presented today in Rome, al Palace of Information AdnKronos.
In 2021 Fabrizio Conti, creative director of Artcloud Network International, an Italian company that operates in the cultural heritage sector, was invited by the Azerbaijani Government to participate in the impressive reconstruction work of the Karabakh region, started just after the end of the thirty-year conflict with ‘Armenia. Conti was asked to conceive state-of-the-art museums, full of technology, to safeguard the memory – and virtually reconstruct – what Karabakh once was. “Agdam delenda est” – a title that unequivocally refers to the legendary and proverbial phrase ‘Carthago delenda est’ – depicts and testifies to the senselessness of peoples at war who, to assert their superiority, aim to annihilate the enemy, erasing their identity and culture , history. A war strategy – still used today – which has its origins in the times of Roman rule, when Cato, with just three words, explained the purpose of the Roman armies: to definitively erase Carthage so that it could no longer be inhabited.
“Agdam delenda est” is a journey through images into the soul of Karabakh. A journey into the silence of a ghost place among the abandoned trenches and the remains of what was once an inhabited place. A journey into people’s memories, in search of a past that no longer exists. “It’s my journey, between curfews and makeshift shelters, in a surreal place where cell phones work intermittently, the water is freezing and at the table we only drink vodka”, says Conti. “Agdam delenda est” – adds the author – is my personal experience, in a land I didn’t know, which overwhelmed me, passionate and enriched me. Without these shots – he underlines – I would not have been able to describe the emotions I felt, crossing this place, of which little remains, but where at every step you can still breathe his past and a powerful desire to forget about rebirth. I wanted to stop my gaze through the images – he concludes – to fix the memory of a place, of a forgotten but terrible and senseless conflict like all wars.”