Aram was born in London in 1983 to artist parents Dorothea Wight and Marc Balakjian. He studied Computer Animation at the NCCA, graduating in 2006 into his first job at MPC, where he worked on VFX for films such as Narnia and Harry Potter. In 2009, Aram quit film to start his own business: a web design agency which he ran successfully for years, building a client list that included the NHS and the RNIB. However, losing his mother to a rare cancer in 2013 had a profound impact on his ambitions.

In 2015 he wound down his business and boarded a plane to Ukraine, the start of a journey that would last 11 months and span three continents. While blogging about his travels, Aram discovered a love of telling stories through images and words. He returned to London in 2016 to care for his father who had also been diagnosed with terminal cancer. After his father’s death in 2017, Aram began to pursue journalism professionally and now splits his time between travel and his home in London.