What was the main motivation for your visit to Armenia?

The goal of this trip was to gain insight into Armenia’s artistic constellation of independent thinkers, among whom different ideas were interacting and motivating each other. I went to Armenia mainly as part of my research for the Blind Dates project I am co-curating with Neery Melkonian.  The project is a cultural undertaking to activate the artistic imagination within the nooks and crevices of the accepted history of the diverse geography of a collapsed empire, namely the Ottoman Empire. At its outset, the project started as an exploration of the Turkish-Armenian axis, but then it grew to encompass a larger territory. So our focus became the varied continuities and discontinuities since the breakup of the empire, and how artists and intellectuals reevaluate this particular history and its dominant narratives, how they highlight its long-lost, forgotten nuances, and distill it through an artistic vocabulary.

 

History with all its fixed narratives and dates can be quite myopic, and art needs to challenge that. And since 2006, we as co-curators had been pairing or rather matchmaking artists for a series of private and informal discussions that would inform not only their work but also the exhibition itself.  So we orchestrated these so-called “blind dates” to inspire research-based artistic projects. The result will be an exhibition that is mostly based on collaborations stemming from these critical encounters.  As you know, an exhibition can be a relatively closed system, and we as co-curators have been more interested in turning it into a process, in which the idea of culture, as something that exists in and through dialogue, could be fully actualized. Least but not last, I had met my co-curator on Blind Dates in 2005, through what you may call a kind of blind date, at a Performa05 project I worked on by French-born Armenian artist Melik Ohanian, who introduced us to each other.

 

When Neery Melkonian invited me to curate an exhibition together, the project was at its nascent stages and its premise, content, framework and title were yet to be conceived. She was invested not just in identity politics, but also philosophy, history and Armenian community life at large, in and beyond the United States. Her invitation was to a dialogue mainly on Turkish and Armenian artistic production routes, or their absences thereof.  

 

There was a lot of knowledge production on the topic of genocide, but most of it had remained within academic boundaries, and not necessarily within immediate access to the cultural field. I had to get acquainted with different positions within diaspora for instance- a nuance that I was immediately required to understand. I welcomed the learning curve, and I am a believer if you are good student, everyone benefits. We had to have a close look at everything, but we had only very few models to follow from our immediate locality. 

 

As a curator, I had worked on various politically provocative projects before, including an artistic reconstruction of Jewish bank-turn-into-a-Nazi-looting-institution. I had invited Michael Blum to work on the history of the building of De Appel in Amsterdam for instance, which used to host a Jewish bank called Lippmann Rosenthal & Co., but was transformed into a model for a counterfeit Nazi bank of the same name that was set up to loot Jewish property. This has become quite a hot and mediatic topic in 2005, as it dramatically and publicly challenged the traditional self-representation of the Dutch as “tolerant, open and good.” During the preparation of this project in collaboration with the National Archive in The Hague and Netherlands War Documentation Center in Amsterdam, I remember then columnist and Agos editor Etyen Mahcupyan walking by the door of the art center by chance, and me telling him hopefully we will achieve similar projects in our own home-base. Later, I had organized a four-part presentation for the Beijing-based Long March Project in New York City, highlighting Chinese identity and Diaspora-related issues in the Unites States, including racism, and strategies as how one can hide his/her own identity in a host culture. The project also pertained a speculative discussion on strategies for cultural activism between African-American and Chinese artists and scholars. My co-curator, on the other hand, had worked extensively on projects related to the Armenian Diaspora, Middle Eastern Diaspora(s). She had curated exhibitions with various American Indian artists during her years in Santa Fe, and set up a social recovery project called NK Arts, pertaining the conflicted Nagorno Karabagh, amongst others. 

 

All to say, despite our prior experiences, we felt that we were still charting new terrains in the visual arts world. We agreed that we needed to hear others, talk to others, and learn from others and from each other through formal and informal gatherings. We jointly decided to open the process up to include artists but also architects, musicians, scholars or non-artist experts, just as the corresponding public programming that precedes the exhibition would inform our curatorial process and allow us to share the process with broader audiences. So to be able to jumpstart a research lexicon that could capture our shared knowledge of the visual arts as well as our capacity to deal with traumatic pasts, be they individual or collective, through the language of contemporary art - this was a must.

 

Well, fluctuating relationships fueled mostly by nationalists from both sides, especially around the 24th of April, have been around for a long time. But yes, much has changed, too. In Turkey, we lost Hrant Dink, the Turkish-Armenian journalist who was shot dead on January 19, 2007 in front of the building where he worked as the chief editor of the Turkish-Armenian weekly newspaper Agos. Hrant Dink was one of the few intellectuals of the country, questioning the institutionalized politics of repression towards its history. His assassination created an unprecedented awareness among artists, starting with the performance troupe Ciplak Ayaklar (Bare Feet Company)’s action (led by Mihran Tomasyan), whose members, along with about 80 participants, lied on the ground covered with newspapers in front of Agos Newspaper office, where Dink was assassinated. Then, the “19th January Collective” was formed, which reported itself to the office of the public prosecutor and asked to be tried, stating that they agree with the wording that Hrant Dink used in his writing that caused him to be put on trial. This group’s initial momentum was eventually lost due to internal differing opinions. Hrant icin Adalet icin / For Hrant for Justice, another civic initiative with participating artists, started gathering outside of the courthouse and set up an online platform in order to closely support and follow the Hrant Dink case.  When we started talking about the project in 2005 and 2006, many artists from Turkey were not really interested into our project. But a year later, this incident moved many artists to think about their positions on the country’s politics, not only its past in relation to Armenians. 

 

On the bilateral artistic exchange front, Nazareth Karoyan and Angela Harutyunyan in Armenia, in collaboration Beral Madra from Turkey, organized an international summer school for curators in 2008. A university-initiated program funded by Open Society Institute from Armenia titled “Changes through Exchanges” invited artists and curators from the region including Xurban_collective. In 2009, "Reciprocal Visit”, a program initiated by Istanbul-based Apartment Project, took few Turkish artists on an exchange tour between Iran, Azerbeijan, Georgia, and Armenia. The Istanbul Biennial under Croatian curatorial collaborative WHW's artistic direction pushed the envelope even further in 2009 between the two countries, even though this was not their immediate goal. Worth noting, also the relationship between Turkey and Armenia started changing with football diplomacy and with Obama’s policies. So as artists and curators, we had to critically reflect on and embrace these developments. 

 

Yes it was my first time. My inquiry was oriented around both subjects and objects. I was looking at a variety of old and new myths that needed to be cracked open, to see how they had been formed during the nation-making process of Armenia. What are the most relevant events, which have corresponded to a radical change in artistic production in Armenia? How is history, memory and discourse constructed and manipulated? What is the iconography of the republic? What kind of images are circulating in relation to Moscow, Ankara or Washington DC? Who are the artists that left behind bodies of work that were revolutionary in their gestures during Soviet and post-Soviet times? Who are the thinkers who use art-making as sites of memories? What is the local response to Hrant Dink's murder or the football diplomacy between Turkey and Armenia? Who tackles the Church head on?  

 

My appetite was voracious, my questions were endless, and I already was aware of the impossibility of tackling them all within few days. But I am a believer of getting to know a place in three days or three years. I was confident that I could gather my impressions, as long as I had openness and empathy as my main tools. 

 

Upon arrival, I spent some long moments at the passport control officer with my Turkish passport, but then received a warm welcome from a driver who took me to the State University dormitory (all thanks to AICA’s arrangement) where I prepared for my meetings. The place was tidy and comfortable but I was quite concerned that neither my Chinese nor Turkish mobile phones had coverage in Armenia, so I had no communication outlet with the outside world really. The next day, I took a taxi to the new Armenian Egyptology Centre of Yerevan State University. My first “blind date” was with Christian Tutundjian de Vartavan, the Director of this new center, which effectively marked the foundation of Egyptology in Armenia. Tutundjian de Vartavan is also the Melik of a 600 year-old Ottoman family, and his family background also contained the links through time and space that intrigued me. Melik is a hereditary Armenian noble title, coming from various Eastern Armenian principalities known as Melikdoms starting from the late Middle Ages until the end of the 19th century; and his family enterprises had spanned from Istanbul to Hong Kong. Was this a valid way to jumpstart a curatorial research process? For me, it was just as important to dig down to the ancient roots of the country including its pagan culture, and to understand its political and religious history.

 

 

 

 
Sona Abgaryan‎ at the “Mafia Club” (Courtesy of Defne Ayas.)

 

The first artist I met was Sona Abgaryan at a “Mafia Club,” for lack of a better place, as it was near the dormitory I was staying. From this first moment onwards, mafia life seemed to be ever-present in Armenian society; it is even flaunted on television serial programs, and used in advertising for companies like cell phone companies and local brandy. I initially thought that this must be influence of Russian mafia – but I was wrong, the source turned out to be the Italian Godfather, too.  We talked about Sona’s background and her ongoing examination of the living and working conditions of women in Armenia, over cigarettes and coffee.  Right after, Karen Andreassian and his partner took me to a bistro where yoghurt soup was accompanied by his March 1 resistance stories, the day of a police crackdown on protesters that left ten people dead in Armenia. This was the result of opposition anger over the results of February 19 presidential elections, which were arguably stolen by the current president. The then-president imposed a state of emergency after the demonstration, restricted the media, and sent in armed troops– resulting in more deaths. Andreassian’s walkscapes-his homage to the protesters, took place in front of a now winter-empty swimming pool. We also had a broad range of topics we discussed together. 

 

What was the contribution of Armenia to the 20th Century Avant-garde in Russia? What was Armenian Cubo-Futurism and Constructivism like in the 1920s? What is the influence of European modernism as a universalist form alongside socialism in a country such as Armenia? Who were the revolutionaries in Soviet Social Realism who left an imprint, and how did they do this while Russia was transitioning from an empire mode to a Communist system? How did Socialism work as a glue in Armenia versus other Soviet republics? How could Social Realism and architecture be developed with a certain flair in Armenia but nowhere else?  How did Stalin’s immigration policies impact the landscape of the country and form its nationalist identity including the birth of ASALA? What are the specific Post-Soviet conditions in Armenia since 1989 and 1993?

 

Karen Andreassian had also done quite extensive research into factography by Sergei Tretiakov, the Siberian Futurist and later Constructivist writer, playwright and a key contributor to the constructivist journal LEF. This interest gelled with me, as it tied in deeply with the history of Comintern representatives who were sent to Shanghai, where I currently live, in 1920’s. Tretiakov had moved to Beijing as Head of the Comintern, eventually writing his plays "I want a Child" (1926) and "Roar China!" (1926) as well as his “factographic” novel, Den Shi-Hua about the life of a Chinese worker. 

 

Certainly. I was able to connect my experience with Chinese art history with that of Armenia. Both 1920s, 1960s, as well as post-89 situation are worth drawing parallels to- something we started also with Georg Schöllhammer at the Double Infinity exhibition I co-curated with Charles Esche and Davide Quadrio in Shanghai. And since China has become Armenia's second largest trading partner and source country of imports, and as many Chinese manufacturing companies are exporting their products to Russia through the convenience of Armenia's custom- and tax free access deal with Russia, as a result with money flowing through between these countries, I am sure there will be an intense cultural interest that will follow as well. Maybe I can discuss that more after explaining the rest of the trip. After our talk, Andreassian drove me to the hall for my lecture that day. 

 

Thanks to AICA’s arrangement again by curator Eva Khachatryan and art critic Nazareth Karoyan, I gave a brief introduction about the Blind Dates project in progress, as well as all the other projects I am working on such as the Arthub Asia’s groundwork across Asia. My lecture was attended by a handful, and the location of the Mekhitar Sebastatsi Art College was remarkable. At one time, Bangladesh, where the school is located, was one of the furthest new districts built in Yerevan, and because of the distance, locals quickly began calling it Bangladesh, which has stuck to this day. Infrastructure-wise, it was quite undeveloped but there was dignity in the air, rather then poverty. The drinks followed at Marco Polo club, joined by a group of young, recently fired journalists, friends of my friends in Istanbul. It was refreshing to see some of the Turkish-Armenian network’s extended relationships in Yerevan, especially also with the artistic community.

 

I packed many meetings into my programme. A meeting with Kara Matsakyan, one of the first feminist artists of contemporary art trajectory in the country, took place first thing in the morning at the Media Center where she teaches. She presented her work-in progress with Sona Abgaryan, in which they both embark on a cross-generational journey to survey the unchanging position of women in Armenia. Issues related to gender roles, freedom of expression and feminist currents are dealt with in animation and video, where they create a virtual world in which their respective avatars, or digital personae, come to life. Recognizing the limitations of classical feminist discourse, the artists implicitly seek a reorientation of artistic traditions in new media, manifesting a universal necessity for alternative visions of individual perspectives.

 

 

 

Some of the artists I met were also curators of significant historical gestures and actions. I spent for instance quite some time with artist Ruben Arevshatyan, in whom it is impossible not to find a kindred, collaborative spirit and a certain kind of openness that is refreshing. His Hay Gallery cultural center project -now unfortunately defunct- had opened its doors to local, diaspora and international artists in its heyday and was quite a prolific default space for artistic reflection. I also met with artist David Kareyan, now busy with his New Locality project embracing a pop-painterly approach to worldly reflections. Kareyan, who was also the appointed Curator of the Armenian Pavilion at Venice Biennale 2005, had contributed actively to the creation of the Armenian contemporary art scene with exhibitions at the Armenian Center for Contemporary Experimental Art (ACCEA). Looking at the period of 2000-2005, he and curator Eva Khachatryan doubtlessly stand out as the most active organizers.  

 

Kareyan introduced me also to Edward Balassanian, co-founder of ACCEA/NPAK with his artist wife Sonia. Having arrived from Iran by way of New York, the Balassanians had started an experimental museum as early as 1992. So there was an idea of contemporary art that really reflected international tendencies in Armenia 18 years ago. 

 

 

Armen Grigoryan, Arevik Arevshatyan, Ruben Grigoryan and Ruben Arevshatyan sharing 3rd Floor documentation materials. (Courtesy of Defne Ayas.)

 

 

The core of artistic creation I felt at its strongest when I had my meeting with the former members of the 3rd Floor, an art historical wellspring for Armenian contemporary, at prolific and generous artists Arevik Arevshatyan and Ruben Grigoryan’s house. Armen Grigoryan, who had intervened in the annual official exhibition of the Armenian Artist’s Union, joined in as well over tea and candy, and showed all of us his archived images of how they challenged the official paradigms for unionized art and enabled the birth of a more experimental spirit in the country from 1987-1994.

 

 

Artists in Armenia are relentless promoters of freedom of thought, human rights, gender equality, democracy, resistance, but also an improved relationship with Turkey. Some are quite content with the country’s interfacing with the market economy and Diaspora, maybe as a relationship of convenience; but most of them are quite disgruntled, rightly so. Some are tired of the Turkey-Armenia relationship being based solely on either genocide protocol or natural gas pipelines, which I can also quite empathize with. 

 

And not everyone is in agreement with each other when it comes to art production, knowledge production, and most importantly, the making of recent art history. I certainly noticed slight divisions within the art scene between those who question each other’s strengths and aspirations to be visible at the international level. Those who speak an imported language of contemporary art, those who can speak English or French, those who are the self-appointed authentic agents of Armenian locality, those whose will forever remain diaspora and/or money-affiliated, thus at the risk of not being culturally endorsed- there were some disparate opinions indeed. You also see the exhaustion that stems from the fragile infrastructure. The politics of art history-making was definitely in the air, with art historian Vartan Azadyan giving probably the most intense analysis and rigorous dissection of it.

 

Isn’t the eternal question how artistic histories are recorded and written? Who are the authorized narrators of comprehensive histories? Whose small histories are deemed significant while others’ are omitted? What centers have had which kind of motivations? What are the current revisionist strategies? How can the soft narratives be questioned? 

 

The period of the early 2000s in Armenia engendered a great amount of artistic creativity and productivity. And now it seemed that the politics of art history-making was intensifying, and threatening to cause a disintegration of a once-highly spirited experimental art scene. The Armenian art scene has yet to experience institutionalization if at all, and discussions on the prolific 2000s and the stagnation in 2010 made me understand even more that opening up a radical space for critical reflection with a highly collaborative spirit is not a local but a universal need. 

 

It is hard to make a generalization as such. Regarding newer initiatives, Anna Barseghian, the co-founder of an initiative called Utopiana, arranged an appointment for me at their premises, which is located not at the heart of the city but a few miles outside. Along with her partner, Stefan Kristensen, Utopiana drives an intelligent platform for the dissection of Post-Soviet Armenian ecology, and situates its mostly philosophical inquiry in the productive crossings of the post-Soviet culture in Armenia, by collaborating with locally and internationally known artists, writers and theorists.  Another proactive initiative was the Women Resource Center that empowers

 women to take an active role in society and lobbies for women's rights in Armenia and deals with stereotypes in society regarding gender issues, sexual rights and health. Arpi Adamyan and Lara Aharonian affiliated actively with this space also continue to examine the notion of queer space in Armenia, which seems is ever more needed. 

 

I should also say that, apart from these initiatives, I paid a visit to Parajanov's Museum whose subject inspired the title of the first survey exhibition of Armenian contemporary art in Europe, (and which also featured a dramatic view of the diplomacy football stadium and genocide monument in Yerivan) as well as the Matenadaran Manuscript Museum, unrelated to the contemporary art scene maybe, but a rich repository for Armenia’s rich medieval written culture.

 

 

I met only with open-minded, progressive, dialogue-driven people. One evening I had dinner with ACCEA/NPAK team, coincidentally at a restaurant called Ayas - my last name.  Only here, I found out that Ayas was the main harbor of the historical Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, currently the southern part of Turkey, and it is where part of my family still lives- a city that served as a Western terminal to the East and where Marco Polo, for example, set out on his journey to China, turning into a chief outlet to the Mediterranean for the goods brought from Central Asia. 

 

During this dinner, the live music in the background consisted of songs of Armenia Fedayi (Fedayee) - rather all the Armenian Revolutionary Songs that promote Armenian patriotism, not very favorable to Turks. The origins of these songs lie largely in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when Armenian parties were established to fight for the political cause of Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire. Most of these songs tell the stories of individual fedayees- volunteer militia, who fought with the Turks. They talk about genocide, successful military operations, historical battles, heroic deaths, among other sensitive topics, one way to continue to educate the newer generation of Armenians about their history.

 

 

 

 

 

It was more like awakening of a past that I was not allowed to learn about when in school. As I said, I had insightful company. Edward Balassanian explained to me the source of these songs. He also told me long stories about what had brought him to Armenia, and what he had been doing in recent years including overseeing the construction of a Diaspora-funded church as well as the Kafesjian Center for the Arts Center- another Diaspora formation in Armenia with museological intentions at the heart of the city, now under the direction of an American director, with an energetic and dedicated Armenian staff. Our conversation ranged from the history of the church, bits and pieces of Armenian history and society from ancient to today, Armenian lore, politics of Diaspora to personal moments of disappointment regarding failed acts of cooperation in the scene. 

 

During this discussion, many questions kept coming to my mind: How did the Church gain back power in Armenia? The Armenians I knew had some dose of religion at one point in their lives whether in the USA, Turkey or Lebanon. But here I was in a Post-Soviet country claiming its Christian roots? That was quite a surprising nuance. The experience of the 20th century for Armenia was that of Soviet politics, while the Christian roots and identity have been mostly defining the diaspora. Also what had happened to the Pagan traditions that defined this culture before Christianity? Where were the anchors of this civilization? How did it then undergo a Christian transformation - how at its various heights did it become Soviet, and then a proud nation promoted as being the first nation to accept Christianity?

 

None of the artists would want to join me on my visits to the churches. It was naïve from me to expect this probably. The only person who agreed was a Turkish-Armenian medical student currently studying in Armenia. Our Armenian driver was 50+ year old and had only recently been baptized! We drove together to Echmiadzin, the “Vatican” of Armenia and the seat of the Catholicos of All Armenians. We were there to commemorate the 40th day Jesus was taken to Jerusalem to be offered to God in the temple, and I had a chance to have an in depth conversation with a Turkish-Armenian priest from Istanbul who was in training as a church architect there over the pagan temple upon which the church was settled. We also visited the Khor Virap, a 7th century Armenian monastery with definite pagan roots in the Ararat plain, very close to the border with Turkey and the closest point in Armenia to Mount Ararat, the national symbol of Armenia. This is where I witnessed a wedding with the Armenian ritual of the "red apple," in which - even today - the groom's family inspects a bridal couple's bed sheets to ascertain the bride's virginity. If the requisite virginal blood is found, tradition dictates that the groom's families send the bride a bowl of red apples. Across the border, in Turkey, the same tradition exists but minus the red apples.

 

 

View from the Turkey-Armenia border. (Courtesy of Defne Ayas.)

 

Yes. At the time of my visit, there were many headlines speculating on the opening of the borders, so I knew I had to go and see the border with my own eyes.  I quickly realized that the history of the border is quite blurred in Turkey, as if it is part of an intentional amnesia campaign, I suppose. The path to an old rusty kiosk, where once people would have had their passports stamped, was overgrown with rust, remarkably precarious nests of storks, abandoned oil cylinders and weeds.

If you follow the Turkish media, you’d think the border was closed in 1915 and never open since then. The truth is that Turkey had only a border with the newly independent Armenia since the collapse of Soviet Union in 1991 only and "closed" it two years after- in 1993 in support of Azerbaijan.

 

I must admit, however, that I was quite shocked to see the Russian presence at the borders.  Russian border guards and Armenian soldiers guard the border, and reminiscent of the Cold War atmosphere, troops from Turkey look back from the other side. Was this the Soviet legacy? How could the presence of the Russians here not have metaphoric dimensions?

 

An open border could change everything, but history weighs heavy on the shoulders of an economically driven Turkish government and landlocked Armenians seeking to overcome animosity generated by genocide. It seems to me that the opening of the border is more problematic for the Armenian Diaspora because of the time in World War I when so many Armenians were killed during their mass deportation from Anatolia. The Armenian Diaspora is the result of this, so it is hard to blame them. Armenia itself is not comfortable with being equated with these atrocities only, but they want genocide to be internationally recognized. My fear would be that the borders might open with only a neo-liberal scheme in mind, thus blanketing all the nuances we are trying to highlight in our collaborations.

 

The questions pertaining to this country, its history, its culture and its diaspora are too big to completely address in only four days. And the overall amnesia and lack of information that exists between Turkey and Armenia is remarkable and has a long way to be overcome. Hopefully by encouraging more visits and exchange between the two countries, this can be achieved.

 

I believe that art should instigate dialogue and questions, and keep culture in motion. A curator has the potential to act a cultural orchestrator of various networks; with so much access to information and possibilities, s/he can act as a diplomat and disseminator. S/he can create platforms for actions and debates that, as in my collaborator’s words, are not fixed on classical definitions, but instead puts the emphasis on the hyphenated or in-between spaces many of the active participants come from.

 

In that sense, it was important that I grasped some of Armenia’s nuances. The land’s particular experience, its post-Soviet identity, its history of nationalism and varying thresholds of guardedness, its pronounced stress with its wide diaspora management from Iran to Turkey to the USA, its political take on Turkey, and Russia’s continued presence, especially at the borders - all this was rich material to digest. I was able to decipher the local cultural scene only to a limited extent, but it was necessary that I met with the regarded artists and scholars of Armenia who would introduce to me to their own work in the field, and that I could introduce the idea that we are open to collaboration and its unpacking with artists and scholars who deal both with research-based facts and speculations for our exhibition.