Araz Artinian explores the past

Project Under Construction

Published: Monday November 09, 2009

Elen Khougoyan, right, 15, knitting a Vaspourakan lace and wearing the typical Vaspourakan dress, and Meline Ghaletyan, 13, knitting an Aintab lace, wearing a typical Aintab dress. Araz Artinian

Araz Artinian, who made the film, The Genocide in Me, is creating an interactive website celebrating Armenian history. It involves children and costumes in various parts of Armenia. Karen Mirzoyan

Yerevan - After an in-depth examination of her Armenian identity with the 2005 film The Genocide in Me, Araz Artinian was tired of exploring what she called "the Genocide issue."

"I didn't want to hear the word ‘Armenia' or ‘Armenian,'" Artinian told the Armenian Reporter. "I was ready to give up my Armenian identity.... I had begun by fighting against my dad's obsession with his nationalism, but I became worse."

She told herself, "If I stay in Armenia, I'll do something with kids. I'll do something about the future of Armenia and something that touches the art world.... I started doing research."

Artinian's new project is to create an interactive website. Like "20 Voices," a site she began after finishing The Genocide in Me, this website will include a map, in this case of Armenia today.

"The main reason I started [this project]," says Artinian, "was I thought that Armenian history was not that well taught in our school.... I said it will be interesting, even for me, to recreate scenes from the 22 past centuries of Armenia so kids can have something visual to base their knowledge on, and by remembering the photos they can remember the history."

In order to choose the themes for the 22 centuries of Armenia's history, Artinian sought out 30 children, ages 10 to 17, from all 12 districts of Yerevan, each of whom practices an art form that is disappearing in Armenia. With these children she travelled as far as Karabakh to create the moments that represent each century.

The website will have two components, fiction and documentary. Artinian began her project by visiting schools in Yerevan and photographing the students. "I looked for kids who were photogenic and talented. And I would ask the teacher, ‘who would you suggest?'... I went mostly after the talent."

The 22 centuries of Armenia have themes ranging from musical instruments (duduk, zurna, and dhol in earlier centuries; kanun, oud, and kamancha after the 15 c.), and visual arts (ceramics, miniature painting, lace) to horseback riding and the acrobatic arts, as well as famous figures (e.g. Mesrop Mashtots, representing literature).

For the documentary portion of her site, photographed by Karen Mirzoyan, Artinian interviewed and collected information on the lives of the children who learn and perform these arts. They are photographed in front of their homes and their schools, and while performing their art forms. Beneath the photos are quotes from the parents and teachers, with information on how much the teachers are paid and what their lives are like. The site "is going to show the social life of Armenia, and how hard it is for parents to send their kids to these art schools."

One of the first schools Artinian visited was the Seven-Year Armenian Folk Instruments Music School in Shengavit, a district of Yerevan. At some point during her visit she went to use the restroom: "they brought me to this room (and it's a big school) it was a hole in the floor; the toilets were maybe 50 years old and they were broken...I freaked out." Later, upon requesting funding for her current project and getting turned down, she received an offer of funding "only to be used in helping the schools [she'd] visited." Before this, Artinian states, "I didn't have an idea that I wanted to do humanitarian work ... but I said ‘yeah, give me the funding and I'll do it.'"

With this start, and later funding, Artinian raised $250,000 dollars. The largest donor is MTS-Vivacell. She used the money to renovate the toilets in the schools in Yerevan. "I said if I'm gonna help one school, I'm helping all the schools. I did a list of all the art and music schools in Yerevan; there's about 50 of them. There are different schools, but I didn't differentiate. I said ‘if I'm helping you, you have to give me the names of three other schools in your district because I'm helping everyone.'"

The "fictional" photographs will be representations of the history of the century and the region. One photo, depicting "the art of wood," shows a young boy holding a long fisher's cane, elaborately decorated. He made the cane himself. He stands by the Argichi River across from the Kotavank church; he's a fisher. "The business of fish was booming during the ninth century," Artinian said. "Grigor Supan II who built this church, he betrayed the Armenian nation, and he was the son of the Princess Mariam who had built the churches on Sevan Island." (Artinian visited "more than 400 churches" while choosing locations for this project.)

The costumes the young artists are wearing in the photos were made over a two-year period by Souzanna Baghdassarian under Artinian's direction. Their designs are based on miniature paintings, researched by Artinian at the Matenadaran repository of ancient manuscripts to reflect the fashion of the periods they represent.

"Except for this one," Artinian mentions, "I couldn't find a photo of a miniature painting of an astronomer. But I found something from the time with all of these symbols on it that related to the subject, so we made a costume with the symbols on it." She is pointing to the photo depicting Ananya Shirakatsi. "This is Dvin, seventh century. Ananya Shirakatsi was invited to Dvin by the Catholicos." The young boy in the photo, in an astronomer's clothes, gesturing toward the sky is standing on a ruin. "This is the only thing left from Dvin where they had the meeting."
Not only helpful as history lessons, Artinian adds, these photos will provoke interest in the different sites she visited. "If they're interested in coming to Armenia, [people will] where to go, but not your typical places."

Many of the historical characters depicted in these photographs stand in the midst of the very ruins of their age. For the 8th century photograph, Artinian comments, "I went through hell looking for the location. I had seen the photo of this khachkar [stone cross]; it was one of the first of Armenia but you have to walk two kilometers to find it in this village in Talin." Or in the case of the 12 c. ("stone"), of St. Krikor Partsrakashi Church" it was totally destroyed. You have to walk down a valley to get to it."