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  • Exhibit puts lens on L.A. Armenians

    Exhibit puts lens on L.A. Armenians
    By Naush Boghossian, Staff Writer

    Los Angeles Daily News, CA
    Sept 12 2004

    GLENDALE -- Artist Ara Oshagan has spent four years photographing
    Armenians throughout Los Angeles in a quest to answer the question,
    What does it mean to be an Armenian?

    "Where does the Armenian stop and the non-Armenian begin? What
    are those boundaries?" said Oshagan, 39, whose day job is as a
    computational physicist. "We're using Armenians to try and address
    universal issues of identity for all immigrant communities."

    "Traces of Identity: An Insider's View into the L.A. Armenian
    Community," features 40 black-and-white photographs exploring identity
    through religion, family, society and politics.

    Oshagan's photographs capture scenes in everyday life -- a family
    retreat at Big Bear Lake, inmates at Ironwood State Prison, church
    services in Pasadena, demonstrations on east Hollywood streets, a
    party in Studio City, a drug rehabilitation center in Palmdale and
    a convalescent home in Eagle Rock.

    "Ara moved beyond stereotypes of Armenians and really was able to get
    inside the variety of different expressions of Armenian identity,"
    said Donald Miller, a professor of religion and executive director of
    the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern
    California. The center sponsored the exhibit. The documentary exhibit
    is partially funded by grants from the California Council for the
    Humanities and the George Ignatius Foundation.

    "On one level he shows Armenians living the good life with extended
    family by a swimming pool, but at the other extreme there are
    photographs of Armenians in jail. That's a long ways from the
    stereotype of the good life by the pool," Miller said.

    The identity of immigrant groups is constantly being challenged, and
    the photographs show that there are multiple identities of Armenians,
    he said.

    "I hope what will happen is people will see the complexity of the
    Armenian community, that there's not one identity, not one social
    class, and they'll walk away from the exhibit with a sense of the
    contribution that Armenians are making to this rich mosaic of Southern
    California," Miller said.

    Exhibit curator Charlie Hachadourian said Oshagan has created a
    literary narrative with his work.

    "Everything is about the relationships Ara creates with the people he
    photographs, and in that tension he shares with his subjects is the
    ever evolving identity of Armenians in Los Angeles," Hachadourian
    said. "Ara is constantly asking how we delineate our identities
    as Armenians and how we perpetually reinvent ourselves as a unique
    component of a multifaceted and vast whole."

    Oshagan, who comes from a long line of Armenian writers, said the
    answer to what being Armenian means is at the hands of each viewer.

    His own conclusion is that identity constantly evolves.

    "The lines between the subcommunity and the larger community are
    getting blurred all the time," said the Glendale resident. "For
    each viewer there can either be an answer or there could be more
    questions. It's an interaction between the audience and the work. I'm
    posing the question."

    Naush Boghossian, (818) 546-3306 [email protected]

    IF YOU GO The exhibit runs from Sept. 24 through Dec. 31 at the
    Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery in Barnsdall Art Park, 4800
    Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles. To see Ara Oshagan's photographs,
    visit www.araoshagan.com.
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