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IRISH PHOTOGRAPHER PROBES "LOST LANDSCAPES" OF ARMENIAN DIASPORA EXILES
Anna Muradyan
11:37, January 16, 2015
"Armenian Family Stories and Lost Landscapes" is Irish documentary
photographer Helen Sheehan's second exhibition in Turkey.
"In my work, I constantly cover minorities which have become
marginalized and thus do not warrant attention," she told Hetq.
The exhibition displays photos taken in Diyarbakir (Digranagerd)
that bridge the gap between the memories of Armenian descendants of
that town and the people now living in those places.
In May of last year, Sheehan showed her photographic sound pieces
inside the restored Armenian Church of St. Giragos in Diyarbakir.
The photographer's interest in Armenia themes started when she was
a teacher at the Mkhitarist Seminary school in Venice in the 1990s.
"I was thinking about Armenian culture and was asked what it means
to survive in a culture of exile, without having the possibility of
going to your native places," says Sheehan.
She really got seriously engaged in Armenian affairs in 2009, when
she started to narrate stories about Armenians in the diaspora,
both in London and Paris.
Locating family stories is always difficult, and Sheehan points out
that she doesn't pick the story but that it's the other way around.
The stories took the photographer to Diyarbakir, but she's also taken
photos in Zeytoun and Van.
"I was trying to see what it means to be the other, out of the
mainstream," she notes. It also touches me since I am an Irish person
living in London."
She was warmly received in Diyarbakir, something that didn't happen
in Zeytoun.
Sheehan photographed in Diyarbakir when Osman Baydemir, who expressed
positive positions regarding Armenians and other minorities, served
as mayor.
"Later on, I openly revealed what I was doing there and people told
me that, yes, Armenians lived here at one time," says Sheehan.
When photographing, she would affix old Armenian family photos on
the houses that they once lived in.
"In a way it was also an experiment. When people approached the
photos and asked who those people were, I would explain that this
person once lived in this house," says Sheehan, adding that current
residents would tell her that no one had ever told them about the
people who once lived there.
Based on her photos, a catalog entitled Armenian Family Stories and
Lost Landscapes", with a preface by Professor Dickran Kouymjian of
Paris, is now available.
The exhibition, which opened yesterday at the DEPO alternative art
space in Istanbul, will run until February 8.
http://hetq.am/eng/news/58143/irish-photographer-probes-lost-landscapes-of-armenian-diaspora-exiles.html
Anna Muradyan
11:37, January 16, 2015
"Armenian Family Stories and Lost Landscapes" is Irish documentary
photographer Helen Sheehan's second exhibition in Turkey.
"In my work, I constantly cover minorities which have become
marginalized and thus do not warrant attention," she told Hetq.
The exhibition displays photos taken in Diyarbakir (Digranagerd)
that bridge the gap between the memories of Armenian descendants of
that town and the people now living in those places.
In May of last year, Sheehan showed her photographic sound pieces
inside the restored Armenian Church of St. Giragos in Diyarbakir.
The photographer's interest in Armenia themes started when she was
a teacher at the Mkhitarist Seminary school in Venice in the 1990s.
"I was thinking about Armenian culture and was asked what it means
to survive in a culture of exile, without having the possibility of
going to your native places," says Sheehan.
She really got seriously engaged in Armenian affairs in 2009, when
she started to narrate stories about Armenians in the diaspora,
both in London and Paris.
Locating family stories is always difficult, and Sheehan points out
that she doesn't pick the story but that it's the other way around.
The stories took the photographer to Diyarbakir, but she's also taken
photos in Zeytoun and Van.
"I was trying to see what it means to be the other, out of the
mainstream," she notes. It also touches me since I am an Irish person
living in London."
She was warmly received in Diyarbakir, something that didn't happen
in Zeytoun.
Sheehan photographed in Diyarbakir when Osman Baydemir, who expressed
positive positions regarding Armenians and other minorities, served
as mayor.
"Later on, I openly revealed what I was doing there and people told
me that, yes, Armenians lived here at one time," says Sheehan.
When photographing, she would affix old Armenian family photos on
the houses that they once lived in.
"In a way it was also an experiment. When people approached the
photos and asked who those people were, I would explain that this
person once lived in this house," says Sheehan, adding that current
residents would tell her that no one had ever told them about the
people who once lived there.
Based on her photos, a catalog entitled Armenian Family Stories and
Lost Landscapes", with a preface by Professor Dickran Kouymjian of
Paris, is now available.
The exhibition, which opened yesterday at the DEPO alternative art
space in Istanbul, will run until February 8.
http://hetq.am/eng/news/58143/irish-photographer-probes-lost-landscapes-of-armenian-diaspora-exiles.html