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Today's Zaman, Turkey
April 20 2014
The Armenian diaspora project
April 20, 2014, Sunday/ 02:51:31/ SCOUT TUFANKJIAN
The story of the Armenians has always been one of upheaval. For the
past 3,000 years, waves of migrants left their ancestral homes in
modern-day eastern Turkey and northern Syria following ancient trade
and pilgrimage routes and fleeing countless revolutions, civil wars
and massacres.
Despite these centuries of displacement, however, today's Armenian
diaspora is strong and vibrant -- with 8 million Armenians living in
over 85 countries around the globe. As a child, I spent hours poring
through my grandmother's magazines looking for stories of my fellow
Armenians in far-flung cities like Addis Ababa, Buenos Aires, Calcutta
and Damascus, but I could only catch fleeting glimpses of their faces
in school pictures. The only books I could ever find were about the
massacres -- as if the events of 1915 had successfully ended the
Armenian story.
In 2009, after the success of my first book "Yes We Can," which was
about the first Barack Obama campaign, I finally set out to find and
document these Armenian communities that I had wondered about as a
small child and to create a book that would tell the story of a people
largely known outside of our community only for our role as the
victims of the "Meds Yeghern" (Great Tragedy).
This project is not, however, about victimhood. It is a portrait of survival.
Since beginning this project, I have photographed drag racers in Los
Angeles and a village on the Syrian-Lebanese border that keeps all of
the same Old Country traditions my grandmother would reminisce about.
I have met seminarians in Jerusalem, mixed-race altar boys in Addis
Ababa and card playing revolutionaries in Beirut. I have waited in the
wings with Armenian ballet dancers and swam with resettled
Syrian-Armenian refugees. I have seen children thriving in the only
Armenian village left in Turkey and I have met repatriates and
Birthright Armenian volunteers in Yerevan.
I've also done over 200 interviews to make sure that people's stories
about their past and hopes for their future are not lost.
As I struggle to complete this work before the centennial of 2015, I
realize that I am documenting a particularly important and fragile
moment in Armenian history. Moreover, for many people, the story I am
telling is an unknown one as too many people only have access to the
story of our tragedy. While many of the challenges our communities
face do have their roots in the events of 1915, Meds Yeghern was not
the end of the Armenian story.
http://www.todayszaman.com/news-345612-photo-story-the-armenian-diaspora-project.html
April 20 2014
The Armenian diaspora project
April 20, 2014, Sunday/ 02:51:31/ SCOUT TUFANKJIAN
The story of the Armenians has always been one of upheaval. For the
past 3,000 years, waves of migrants left their ancestral homes in
modern-day eastern Turkey and northern Syria following ancient trade
and pilgrimage routes and fleeing countless revolutions, civil wars
and massacres.
Despite these centuries of displacement, however, today's Armenian
diaspora is strong and vibrant -- with 8 million Armenians living in
over 85 countries around the globe. As a child, I spent hours poring
through my grandmother's magazines looking for stories of my fellow
Armenians in far-flung cities like Addis Ababa, Buenos Aires, Calcutta
and Damascus, but I could only catch fleeting glimpses of their faces
in school pictures. The only books I could ever find were about the
massacres -- as if the events of 1915 had successfully ended the
Armenian story.
In 2009, after the success of my first book "Yes We Can," which was
about the first Barack Obama campaign, I finally set out to find and
document these Armenian communities that I had wondered about as a
small child and to create a book that would tell the story of a people
largely known outside of our community only for our role as the
victims of the "Meds Yeghern" (Great Tragedy).
This project is not, however, about victimhood. It is a portrait of survival.
Since beginning this project, I have photographed drag racers in Los
Angeles and a village on the Syrian-Lebanese border that keeps all of
the same Old Country traditions my grandmother would reminisce about.
I have met seminarians in Jerusalem, mixed-race altar boys in Addis
Ababa and card playing revolutionaries in Beirut. I have waited in the
wings with Armenian ballet dancers and swam with resettled
Syrian-Armenian refugees. I have seen children thriving in the only
Armenian village left in Turkey and I have met repatriates and
Birthright Armenian volunteers in Yerevan.
I've also done over 200 interviews to make sure that people's stories
about their past and hopes for their future are not lost.
As I struggle to complete this work before the centennial of 2015, I
realize that I am documenting a particularly important and fragile
moment in Armenian history. Moreover, for many people, the story I am
telling is an unknown one as too many people only have access to the
story of our tragedy. While many of the challenges our communities
face do have their roots in the events of 1915, Meds Yeghern was not
the end of the Armenian story.
http://www.todayszaman.com/news-345612-photo-story-the-armenian-diaspora-project.html