#more armenian traditional costume reference

[maddiesharafian]

Sisters

[aangussca]

Art Studio 1 Excursion: ArtSpace, AGNSW and MCA - PART 2 (10.5.24)

MCA: 24th Sydney Biennale

Juan Davila's oil paintings

Row 1: Untitled (2021), Untitled (2023)

Row 2: Untitled (2021), After Image Wilderness (2010)

Description: "Asked why he chose painting, Juan Davila once answered, 'An enjoyment … does not need explanation. Over an artistic career spent lacerating political figures, government policy and state control, the artist has indeed consistently refused to explain himself. From the outset, Davila's paintings have unflinchingly interrogated cultural, sexual and social identities, taking cues from popular culture, political discourse and mythology to create a complex and provocative body of work. Born in Chile, Davila moved to Naarm/Melbourne in 1974 after the fall of the socialist Allende government. However, his work does not suggest what 'should be', instead richly-illustrating the joys, anxieties, shames and triumphs of the contemporary moment. Psychological and psychoanalytic themes are often present, but the artist refuses to articulate or reveal a clear position, prompting us to question our own biases."

Freddy Mamani

Left to right: Diablada (2024, wood coated in gloss enamel), Salon Gallo de Oro (2024, maquette)

Description: "For the past 15 years, Aymaran architect Freddy Mamani has been designing and building Cholets, a combination of the French word 'chalet' and 'cholo', a reappropriated term once used to disparage those of indigenous descent in Bolivia. Interrupting the monotony of the existing cityscape with his vibrant and distinct neo-Andean style, each Cholet recalls the colours, designs and patterning unique to the Aymara culture. The title Diablada, in particular, recalls the Danza de los Diablos, an Andean cultural dance characterised by performers wearing carnivalesque costumes of trickster devil characters. Neo-Andean architecture largely emerged during the presidency, from 2006 to 2019, of Evo Morales, who was Bolivia's first indigenous leader in the country's 200-year history. It can be seen as a consequence of both his economic policies, which empowered a generation of Aymara business people, and of the sense of pride he instilled in the country's indigenous majority. Designed specifically for the needs of the Aymaran people, each Cholet is three to seven storeys high and follows the same essential layout; the ground floor is dedicated to commercial activities, the middle floors to cultural events, while the upper floors are residences. In this way, each Cholet develops and sustains its own economy. As Mamani says, 'this architecture has its own language, its own culture, its own identity'."

Left to right: Sergey Parajanov's The Colour of Pomegranates, (Out-takes and camera tests) (1969, film installation - colour film), Frank Moore's Lullaby (1997, oil on canvas with red pine frame)

Description of Parajanov's The Colour of Pomegranates: "The Colour of Pomegranates follows the 18th-century ashug (poet, singer) Sayat-Nova from his time in Georgia's royal court, love affair with a princess, consequent expulsion and journey across the Caucasus, to his death in a monastery. Transcending both traditional narrative and national boundaries to draw inspiration from across the region, much like Sayat-Nova's songs, the film recalls a series of Persian or Armenian illuminated miniatures. Created in the years following filmmaker Sergey Parajanov's disavowal of social realism and before his 1973 arrest by Soviet authorities under false charges, it contains references to the endurance of cultures across the South Caucasus region (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, as well as Ukraine) in the face of Soviet oppression. Re-edited by Sergei Yutkevich, a key figure of the avant-garde during the 1920s, his version balanced Parajanov's poetic style with the Gosfilmofond's (Russia's state film archive) demands to make the film more accessible. Thanks to documentary filmmaker Daniel Bird and the National Cinema Center of Armenia, the unseen out-takes from The Colour of Pomegranates were presented at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2019. Over a hundred canisters of out-takes have survived despite the Soviet authorities blocking its distribution. Such film would typically have been recycled rather than preserved. Starring Sofiko Chiaureli, who plays six characters, The Colour of Pomegranates left a lasting impact on the film industry and survives as a testament to the power of poetry as a form of resistance across centuries."

Description of Moore's Lullaby: "Ernest Hemingway once suggested that each person dies twice, once when they pass away and again when the last person to remember them forgets. However, if someone is forgotten before they die, then it might feel as if they never existed. This was the reality for those who lived through the AIDS crisis. For years, as people became sick and died America's gay community was ignored by the media and government. Painter and activist Frank Moore, who at 48 died with HIV/AIDS, created Lullaby by transforming his own sick bed into a whimsical landscape populated by a herd of buffalo. Given US President Ronald Reagan did not so much as utter the word AIDS until four years into the crisis, Moore suspected that his community, much like the endangered buffalo, was being left to become extinct. Drawing parallels between the AIDS epidemic and burgeoning ecological crises, Moore believed that this was an apocalypse for himself and those he loved."

Serwah Attafuah's Between this World & the Next (2023-2024, film installation - digital animation (3D computer-rendered models), and e-waste on wooden frame)

Description: "Serwah Attafuah's digital creation unfolds in a near-future Ghana, drawing viewers into an Afrofuturistic vista contrasting colonial remnants with utopian hope. The narrative, propelled by burning slave castles, sinking colonial ships and formidable female warriors, weaves a tale that is both haunting and empowering. This work embodies Ghana's matrilineal legacy, while addressing contemporary issues like e-waste dumping, symbolised by a bespoke frame crafted from e-waste and the incorporation of Sakawa, or 'internet magic. Responding to William Strutt's Black Thursday, February 6th, 1851, also on display, Attafuah delves into West African history, land rights and climate impact on its indigenous communities, fostering a dialogue between historical reverence and visionary insight. Through imaginative storytelling, Attafuah challeges conventional viewpoints and incites reflection, offering commentary on transcending historical bounds. Her avant-garde blend of cultural reflections with futuristic aesthetics establishes this work as a conversation between past legacies and speculative horizons, towards a reimagined future."

BONUS: Maria Fernanda Cardoso's Butterfly Drawings - Morpho didius (Peru) (2004, archival butterfly wings, acrylic, silicone and metal)

Description: "First, I wanted to be a scientist but I used more the model of theRenaissance artist, like Leonardo, which was scientist and artist. So lwent into art thinking that I could do both, I could do art and science." - Maria Fernanda Cardoso

"Maria Fernanda Cardoso is renowned for her use of unconventional materials, which often include symbolically charged elements from the natural world. ...a selection of the artist's butterfly drawings, featuring the insect's delicate wings arranged in mandala-like patterns. Underpinning these works is a system of geometry and repetition. The drawings invite us to look more closely and reflect on our complex relationship to the natural world."

[canaryrecords]

In the second half of the 19th century, troupes of Moroccans, Egyptians, and Syrians performed in the United States at tent shows, circuses, minstrel shows, vaudeville houses, and theaters as ethnographic/ exotic spectacles for American audiences. Several members of the first Syrian family to emigrate to the U.S., headed by a medical doctor named Yusuf Arbeely (b. 1828, five miles outside of Damascus) who arrived with his wife, niece, and five sons in August 1878, toured during the 1880s offering paying customers (25 cents for adults; 15 cents for kids) a chance to see people from the Holy Land in native costume. The 1893 Columbia World Exposition in Chicago offered many more Americans the chance to witness aspects of Arab and Turkish culture at its pavilions. (Three wax cylinders recorded there by Benjamin Ives Gilman on the morning of September 25, 1893 by four musicians from Beirut and totaling less than five minutes of sound are, strictly speaking, the first sound recordings of Arabs made in the United States.)

Through the end of the 19th and beginning of the early 20th centuries Syrian immigrants to the U.S. developed enclaves in about a dozen cities and towns in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Michigan, and New York. By 1920, over 150,000 Arabic-speaking immigrants from Greater Syria (the Ottoman districts of Aleppo, Damascus, Beirut, Mount Lebanon, and Jerusalem) established themselves in a variety of retail, service, and manufacturing trades, especially the garment business. 40,000 more immigrants from the Syrian diaspora had settled in Canada and Mexico, 300,000 in Brazil and Argentina, and 40,000 more elsewhere in South America and the Caribbean. In the wake of the catastrophe of WWI, in which 18% of the Syrian population died, and the politics of the establishment of the nation of Lebanon, most remained in the Americas.

The first Syrian-American to have recorded in the U.S. was, in fact, second generation: a composer and pianist named Alexander Maloof (b. ca. 1884-85) whose parents arrived from Zahle (present-day Lebanon) in 1884 and applied for citizenship the following year. He was already publishing sheet music of his compositions, by 1901, had established as a music teacher in Brooklyn by 1905 and was performing in public by 1911. His music synthesized American and Syrian elements. In 1912, he copyrighted “America Ya Hilwa” (which he called “For Thee, America” in English) and campaigned for years to have it become the U.S. national anthem. In September and October, 1913, he recorded a porto-ragtime piano arrangement of the traditional Ottoman tune “Alyazayer” and an original composition called “A Trip to Syria” (a trip that he, himself, never made during his lifetime). It is unclear whether the resulting disc was marketed to English or Arabic speaking audiences. But in April 1916 a group credited only as “Syrian Band” recorded four sides for Columbia records in New York and issued as part of their E (ethnic) series for the immigrant community; the hybridized style of those performances are not unlike material Maloof recorded and self-released by Maloof,including his “America Ya Hilwa”, in the 1920s, and it seems reasonable to speculate that these were made under his direction. On his own label, his issued a wide variety of material by his own Oriental Orchestra as well as then-popular immigrant performers. After folding the label, he recorded several more sessions for other labels including Gennett Records in Richmond, Indiana. (Among them were a series of organ solos marketed to funeral parlors and roller rinks.) He produced piano rolls, performed on radio, toured widely, and continued teaching in to the 1950s. Richard M. Breaux’s excellent biographical article on Maloof points out that when he died on leap day 1956 in New Jersey, his local obituary pointed out his efforts to transcribe and preserve Levantine folk music.

Arabic-language discs were imported physically from Beirut and Cairo during the early 1910s by entrepreneurs including A.J. Macksoud who ran a series of music shops on and around Manhattan’s Washington Street, while at the same time Victor Records issued overseas recordings domestically in the U.S. for the immigrant market. It was not until the Maronite priest Rev. George Aziz (b. 1872) recorded a single disc on May 15, 1914 in New York with violin accompaniment that the Arabic language was recorded commercially in the U.S. (Again we refer those interested in a recent biographical article on Aziz by Richard Breaux.) March 18 and 19 of 1915, the first Syrian recording star Nahum Simon made his first recordings for Columbia.

Simon appears to have been a professional shoemaker, born January 25, 1890. He seems to have tried to emigrate first in June 1904 at the age of 15, but after being detained for four days for medical reasons, was deported. He successfully entered the U.S. in 1912, settling first on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn with his wife Rahill and their two American-born children Evaleen (b. ca. 1915) and Joseph (b. ca. 1917). Between March and September 1915, he recorded 12 discs, and then in 1916-17 another 21, all for Columbia. Their popularity would seem to have been the catalyst for the wave of recordings of Arabic-speaking immigrants that took place over the second half of the 1910s. He did not however record again until the 1920s when he made 8 more discs for Victor Records (including two 12” discs) and 3 12” discs for Columbia. After a few appearances of WBBC’s Syrian Hour radio show in early 1933, we are unclear what happened to him.

The only other singers to have recorded nearly as prolific as Simon during the 1910s and 20s were Selim Domani, who made at least 30 discs for Maloof’s label; Louis Wardini, who made 6 discs for Victor on May 16, 1917 and another 25 discs for independent labels in the 20s (including Maloof’s); and Constantine Sooss (or Souse), who released 17 discs on Victor and Columbia during the period October 1917 to February 1920. (Again, Richard Breaux has written biographical studies of all three of them.) One factor ties together the recordings of Simon, Domani, Sooss, Wardiny, and (potentially) Aziz. They all include the violin accompaniment of Naim Karacand. A 2500-word biographical article on Karacand, published at Breaux’s Midwest Majar blog, is attached among the download files for this album. But here is a brief summary:

Karacand was born on September 2, 1890 in Aleppo, Syria, where he was raised Catholic. He arrived at Ellis Island October 10, 1909 and settled in Brooklyn, followed by his younger brother Hicmat and parents Abdullah and Susie. He was first married in 1912, and he had his wife Najeema had three children (1913-17) - the period during which he recorded with Nahum Simon, William Kamel, Moses Cohen, and others as well as about another 10 discs under his own name or anonymously. His band at the time included Shehade Ashear (or Shehadi Ashkar, kanun) and Abraham Halaby (oud), both of whom were Halabi (Aleppan) Jews, or in some cases oudist Toufic Gabriel Moubaid (born ca. 1887-88 in Tripoli, Lebanon). During 1921-22, he was involved in a protracted, bitter, and very public divorce that tore his family apart. He recorded prolifically through the 20s for Maloof and A.J. Macksoud independent labels based in southern Manhattan’s Little Syria neighborhood.

His Declaration of Intent to naturalize as the citizen of the United States on July 10, 1923 was witnessed by his regular collaborator Toufic Moubaid and the dancer Anna Athena Arcus, a native of Mersin, Turkey five years his senior whom he later married. In 1930-32 Karacand worked as a music consultant on a series of film in Hollywood, notably including Mata Hari starring Greta Garbo. In 1936-37, he traveled to Brazil for the wedding of his brother Chukri and performed there before returning to Brooklyn. He spent the 1930s and 40s playing WHOM’s Friday evening Arabian Nights radio program and performing constantly at gatherings of the Syrian-Lebanese community. He continued to record prolifically for independent labels through the 1940s and 50s in New York. Among his last recordings were in 1958 at jazz-Arabic hybrid sessions for Riverside Records under the direction of Ahmed Abdul-Malik, who was then bassist for Thelonious Monk. Following the deaths of his second wife and all three of his children, he died in Astoria, Queens in 1973 and is buried in Green Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

A composer and performer who was held in high regard in his community, Karacand’s repertoire and skill allowed him to play with a wide variety of performers from a variety of backgrounds. Even among his earliest recordings on this album, he plays a classical peshrev (“bishro”) by the Ottoman-Armenian Tatyos (tracks 17-18), urban Beirut/Cairo-style classical tarab (tracks 5-6 and 9-10), and Syrian rural folk deke dances (tracks 21-22 which were originally issued uncredited). His collaborators included Jews (including Moses Cohen, who we suspect was born in Aleppo ca. 1894) as often as Christians.

Between May 1914 and February 1920, Columbia Records issued a total of 70 discs recorded by Arabic-speaking immigrants before ceasing to record them. Victor a total of 32 discs between September 1913 and July 1921 and persisted only sporadically through the 1920s. By and large the market gap for Syrian-American performers on record during the 20s was filled by the Maloof and Macksoud labels. This collection then represents about 10% of the total output for the time-period it covers. Allthough lacking certain key performers (Souss in particular) and sourced from acoustically recorded discs in very mixed condition from over a century ago, and lacking in biographical details for two of its performers (William Kamel and Moses Cohen), I hope it serves as window into in the musical world of a remarkable American immigrant community deserving of more attention.

All tracks recorded at Columbia Grafophone's Woolworth Building studio on Broadway except for 1 & 2 recorded at Victor Records' New York City studio.

Instrumentalists on tracks 3-22 are likely Naim Karacand (violin), Shehade Ashear (or Shehadi Ashkar, kanun) and either Abraham Halaby or Toufic Moubaid (oud).

Recordings dates via Richard K. Spottswood Ethnic Music on Records (University of Illinois Press) and Columbia Records E Series, 1908-23 (Mainspring Press): 1 July 24, 1913 2 September 18 1913 3-6 April 1916 7-10 May 1916 11-18 June 1916 19-20 January 1917 21-22 May 1919

Transfers, restoration, and notes by Ian Nagoski, 2017-2020 Thanks to Richard M. Breaux whose ongoing research into early 20th century Arabic-speaking immigrants can be found at syrianlebanesediasporasound.blogspot.com

Thanks also to Steve Shapiro, Nancy Karacand, and Jorge Khlat.

Further reading: Elmaz Abinader. Children of the Roojme: A Family’s Journey from Lebanon. University of Wisconsin Press, 1997. Donna Carlton: Looking for Little Egypt. IDD Books, 2011 Stacy D. Fahrenthold. Between the Ottomans and the Etente: The First World War in the Syrian and Lebanese Diaspora, 1908-1925. Oxford University Press, 2019. Sarah M. Gaultieri. Between Arab and White: Race and Ethnicity in the Early Syrian American Diaspora. University of Caltifornia Press, 2009 Princess [sic] Rahme Haidar. Under Syrian Stars. Fleming H. Revell, 1929. Linda K. Jacobs. Strangers in the West: The Syrian Colony of New York City, 1880-1900. Kaliyah Press, 2015. Salom Rizk. Syrian Yankee. Doubleday, 1943. Najiba E. Saliba. Emigration from Syria and the Syrian-Lebanese Community in Worcester, MA. Antakya Press, 1992. Lee S. Tesdell et al. The Way We Were: Arab-Americans in Central Iowa, an Oral History. Iowa Humanities Board, 1993.

[polishcostumes]

I had a quick question: I'm wondering what is the difference between the Kontusz Sash polish nobility wore and the sashes you see in some traditional folk costumes, like from the Chełm region. Is there a specific name for the folk sash and where might I find more information about them? Also thank you for your blog, you're an amazing reference and a great help!

Hello! Firstly, sorry for my response coming late. I was very busy recently, but trying to catch up with the responses!Quick answer? Materials and patterns!Sashes of the nobility were really high in quality, woven from thin strands of silk and other expensive threads. They often had golden or silver strands incorporated into the motifs, and they were produced in certain manufactures by artisans, very often Armenian. The motifs woven on the sashes were sometimes coming from decorations from high-end western fashion. Those expensive sashes were inspired by Persian and Turkish outfits.## Here are examples of the nobility / kontusz sashes:_[18th-century Kontusz sash, Paschlis Jakubowicz's manufacture in Lipków](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jakubowicz_manufacture_Kontusz_sash.jpg).__[Closeups of kontusz sashes from the collection of Museum in Płock](http://www.mdplock.pl/node/51).__[This is how they were often tied around the waist, exposing the decorative ends.](http://persjarnia.com/pl/katalog/zaglobas-sash/)__[Fragment of "Portrait of Kazimierz Antoni Krasicki", 1840s](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anonymous_Kazimierz_Antoni_Krasicki.jpg)__[Fragment of "Portrait of Grzegorz Nowakowski", end of 18th century](http://cyfrowe.mnw.art.pl/dmuseion/docmetadata?id=42161&show_nav=true&full_screen=true#)_Sashes of the peasants were usually woven from much thicker threads like wool, and made locally on a loom, according to techniques and patterns passed down the generations. In some regions the name for them is _krajka_, but in most of the country they’re called just a _pas_ (belt). It differed between regions, but most often had simple striped patterns.## Here are examples of typical peasant sashes / belts:_[Woolen belt from Gąbin-Sanniki region, central Poland.](https://strojeludowe.net/#/gabinski/2/12) Old types of such belts in that region were 15cm wide and around 3 to 4 meters long.__[Woolen belt from village of Rudzienko near Kołbiel, east-central Poland](https://strojeludowe.net/#/kolbielski/2/15).__[Krajka from vicinity of Włodawa in eastern Poland.](https://www.muzeumlubelskie.pl/Zarys_etnograficzny_Lubelszczyzny_/Stroje_ludowe_Lubelszczyzny-1-418-73.html)__[More examples from Włodawa.](https://strojeludowe.net/#/podlaskiwlodawa/2/10)__[Green belt from Łęczyca, central Poland.](https://strojeludowe.net/#/leczycki/2/9)__[Belt from Łowicz, central Poland (modern reconstruction).](https://folkstar.pl/products,show,308,1,stroj-lowicki-ludowy-meski.html)__[Belt from region of Podlasie along the Bug River, north-eastern Poland.](http://patternsofeurope.pl/tradycyjne-wzornictwo-lubelszczyzny-dekoracje-strojow/)__[Belt from region of Świętokrzyskie (Holy Cross) in south-central Poland.](http://pik.kielce.pl/e-learning/stroje-ludowe-kielecczyzny/stroj-swietokrzyski.html)__[Belt pattern from vicinity of Jarosław in south-eastern Poland.](http://muzeum.przeworsk.pl/aktualnosci/ludowe-stroje-przeworskie-album-i-pliki-graficzne-do-pobrania/)__[Simple red belt worn in Kujawy, north-central Poland.](https://strojeludowe.net/#/kujawski/2/15)_Some belts / krajki were more decorative like those from Chełm, and there are some regional variants. Still, the belts were much more simple, and made only from local materials.This is how the peasant belts / krajki were usually made:[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i1hwxQid9w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i1hwxQid9w)[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Davk1cf5Hhw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Davk1cf5Hhw)Side note, among the regional costumes, the [Żywiec town costume](https://polishcostumes.tumblr.com/tagged/%C5%BCywiec) is a notable exception because the Żywiec man’s fashion is inspired directly by the historical clothing of szlachta. The Żywiec sashes are meant to resemble the historical kontusz sashes.

[armeniaitn]

Project SAVE unlocks archives, launches online collections database

New Post has been published on https://armenia.in-the.news/society/project-save-unlocks-archives-launches-online-collections-database-51600-19-08-2020/

Project SAVE unlocks archives, launches online collections database

Near East Relief staff members. Seated: The gentleman on the left is unknown, Dr. Khosrov Krikorian is holding his son. His daughter stands on the left next to sisters Lousaper and Anna Kussajikian. Photo taken near Beirut, Lebanon on September 19th, 1925. Photographer unknown. Courtesy of the children of Harry and Lousaper Sarmanian

In 1924, Lousaper and Anna Kussajikian were reunited after years of painful separation through a photograph. The Kussajikian sisters were born in Marash in the Ottoman Empire and survived massacres that claimed the rest of their family members. Lousaper joined the Near East Relief as a young refugee and worked as a nurse midwife at several facilities in Syria. When she sent a photo of herself to a friend in Cyprus, the photo ended up reaching her sister Anna at a Near East Relief orphanage in Greece. Lousaper arranged for Anna to be brought to Beirut, where they lived until they immigrated to Watertown, Massachusetts in 1929. 

The incredible story of the Kussajikian family is one of many in a collection of photographs preserved by Project SAVE. Project SAVE’s archives include photos of Lousaper in orphanages with other young refugees, in clinics with members of the medical staff and seated alongside her sister and friends. These are just a few photographs of the nearly 45-thousand amassed by Project SAVE in the past 40 years.  

The idea for Project SAVE was born 50 years after Lousaper and Anna Kussajikian’s story, in the 1970s in the United States back when Ruth Thomasian was a costume designer in New York City. She was asked to work on a theatrical play set in 1890s historic Armenia. When she couldn’t find photographs for visual research, she went straight to the source. 

She spoke with with senior Armenians, many of them survivors of the Armenian Genocide, visited their homes, looked through their old photo albums and listened to their stories. She was struck by how enthusiastic people were to share their photographs that otherwise might be lost, forgotten or destroyed. “I can always be a costume designer, but I can’t always have these people, eager and willing and able, to talk with me,” Thomasian stated in a recent interview with the Weekly. So she left the theater and founded Project SAVE with the goal of salvaging Armenian photographs from the dustbins of history, a project that would occupy her for the rest of her life. “I followed my instincts, which means you follow what your soul tells you to do,” she asserted. 

Project SAVE has since flourished into a historical resource for Armenians to connect with the hidden stories of their ancestors in a new and tangible way. This week, 45 years after its founding, Project SAVE launched an online collections database, where people worldwide can search among hundreds of photographs and access rare images. This is the first time the public will be able to view and interact with these historical photographs and learn about their origins, who is pictured and what they were doing at the time. “Our mission is to preserve these photographs and the people and the culture so that they can be seen and shared,” explained Project SAVE executive director Tsoleen Sarian. 

Kindergarten graduation class, Armenian Girls’ High School, Adapazar, Turkey 1904, photographer unknown. Courtesy of Arousiag Avedian Kashmanian and Marie Bedikian

The Project SAVE collection captures a cultural heritage by composing a visual catalogue of Armenian practices and customs across time. The database is far more in-depth than posed portraits paid for by wealthy families. They also offer glimpses of quotidian routines: people meeting in the streets, children attending school, trading at the marketplace. They depict average people outside the purview of history working, eating, celebrating and moving through life together. Project SAVE is committed to celebrating the positive aspects of Armenian culture and allowing for the continuation of life through the preservation of photos in order to “help us see, literally see, who we are as Armenians and the contributions we’ve made to society globally,” as stated by Sarian. 

Street in Van, circa 1890 to 1892. Photograph by Reverend Frederick D. Greene, an American missionary to Van. Courtesy of Marie Bashian Bedikian

This undertaking is perhaps best reflected by the Missionary collection, the first photo gallery to be digitized and released alongside the online collections database. The Missionary collection, consisting of 500 photographs captured between 1900 to the 1920s, includes photos taken by Christian missionaries deployed in the Middle East and Near East Relief workers. It is unique in that it offers an intimate perspective into the lives of missionaries and Armenians during a time frame from which images are difficult to come across. While photography was banned during the Armenian Genocide, missionaries from the United States were equipped with personal cameras and took the opportunity to document their experiences and observations.

The Missionary collection provides an expansive look into a complicated period of history. The photographs document the encounter of East and West, like the differences between the missionaries’ and locals’ styles of dress. They also exhibit interactions between different communities, including Armenians, Greeks, Turks and Kurds, in shared communal spaces, like a marketplace. They expose images of resilience and altruism, depicting people at refugee camps and the volunteer physicians who tended to them. 

Konya bazaar, the wood market, 1919, photographer unknown. Courtesy of Araxi Hubbard Dutton Palmer

These photographs constitute relics of a distant past, yet they are also in conversation with the present moment. This collection not only illustrates a dynamic and rich image of a particular place and time 100  years ago, but it also has a broad impact in shedding light on imminent questions that concern people around the globe. 

The photographs include representations of refugees in the Middle East, an issue that is eminently relevant as the number of displaced persons around the world continues to rise. They demonstrate inspiring service on behalf of missionaries who uprooted their lives in the West to travel to sites of atrocities in unfamiliar lands to offer their humanitarian assistance. 

In contemplating the collection, Sarian reflected on the Armenian government’s commitment to provide aid to Lebanon in light of the recent explosion in Beirut. This pledge is rooted in a history of receiving and offering help in times of suffering, encapsulated by the exchange between missionaries and survivors of the Armenian Genocide and other massacres revealed in the photo collection. “I think about what we had to go through as a people and how we did and how we continued to contribute and thrive,” Sarian remarked. “It’s inspiring to see how people helped us and how we continue to help.”

The photographs also complexify modern readings of history by providing diverse and unexpected portrayals of everyday life. 

“In this picture, I don’t know who’s Armenian, who’s Turk, who’s Kurd,” Sarian stated, referring to one of the marketplace photographs. “They’re just people. No one’s running away. No one’s being hurt. It’s just people at the market.”

This diversity is further rendered in other photographs documented by Project SAVE outside of the Missionary gallery. Photographs collected from throughout the twentieth century across continents reflect a myriad of Armenian histories. The cultural heritage they preserve resists homogenizing notions of a single Armenian experience. They push back on the idea, for example, that the Armenian community just includes wealthy elites, by representing working class Armenians from all sectors of society. 

Food distribution center at Yeni Mahalle camp, Adana, 1909 Courtesy of the family of Harry G. Dorman

The photographs simultaneously testify to the threads that unite an incredibly heterogeneous global community. Photos from Armenia and throughout the vast diaspora reveal continuities in cultural elements such as dance, food, music celebration and other traditions across space and time into the present day, as exhibited in a previous digital gallery Our Armenian Spirit. The result is a photographic heritage that attests to an expansive and ever-evolving understanding of Armenian identity. 

Such photos can connect with people living in cities as different as Buenos Aires, Argentina and Glendale, California with large Armenian populations, as well as with those living in areas with little access to other Armenians. They establish links between Armenians residing in countries like Syria or Iran today and 100 years ago. They might resonate with Islamized or hidden Armenians, Armenians who don’t speak the language or practice Christianity and Armenians who identify as mixed race. They do so by unearthing photographs and stories that reveal similar cultural practices at the heart of Armenian identity that transcend facile or constructed distinctions.  

“The more images people have of what it means to be Armenian, the broader [and] more cosmopolitan we can make that definition,” Sarian asserted. “That’s why it is important to be able to have an archive, a place where these photographs are collected so they can be shared.”

This viewpoint speaks to the importance of the new online collections database. In forming the digitized archive, which will grow and develop over time, photographs are not only preserved, but also held, catalogued, documented and shared widely. 

History does not exist in the past. It is internally contested and in continuous dialogue with the present. The formation of a living, thriving archive of photographs opens up newfound possibilities for studying history by allowing the public to directly interact with its records and reflect upon their bearing on the current moment. 

It also personalizes the discipline by setting forth multitudinous narratives of the hidden individuals who comprise history, whose names traditionally cannot be found in history textbooks. 

Thomasian studied history as an undergraduate student, but says she  was dissatisfied with the way the discipline was presented to her. With Project SAVE, she is pursuing her preferred type of historical narrative: people history. “People history is really about having conversations with people. It didn’t start academically, because academics don’t really talk with people to gather their information. They stay in their ivory buildings and don’t get out among the people,” she explained. Through Project SAVE, Thomasian and the organization’s other team members have the opportunity to create a new mode of studying history by redeeming the memories of regular individuals and recognizing the importance and value of their distinct stories for future generations. 

“The idea of these images, a lot of them are unknown. Unknown places, unknown people. But their image is still important. Somehow, I think of it as helping them come back to life almost,” Sarian claimed. 

This hope extends into Project SAVE’s endeavors to make the photographs widely available and usable. Project SAVE collaborates with organizations like the Shoah Foundation to create curriculum about the Armenian Genocide. The database will be available for teachers and researchers to search for primary source material on topics ranging from immigration to fashion. Finally, Project SAVE shares images from the database on social media platforms such as Instagram to bring them to new audiences. These initiatives all reflect the aim to amplify these historic photographs within the Armenian community and beyond. 

The title of the organization stands for Project “Salute Armenian’s Valiant Existence.” Thomasian chose the word “save” before creating an acronym, because she was keenly aware that she was saving people’s stories by providing detailed attention and care to documenting photographs that are too often overlooked and thrown away. The acronym was born as an ode to the Armenian Genocide survivors whom she first interviewed for the project and their undeniable courage.  

Yet the meaning of the name extends beyond this group of people. The project honors Armenian ancestry by placing individuals whose narratives have been neglected or threatened with erasure at the center of history. It saves Armenians today by connecting them with their past and extolling the diversity and wealth of their heritage. 

“These people are not lost and forgotten,” Sarian upheld. “Like you and me, they had families, they had jobs, they had parents, they had children, they studied, they worked, and they left a mark on this earth, and their image survives.”

Two unidentified young women posing with a donkey. The Near East Relief star is visible on their hats. Sivas, Turkey, 1919, photographer unknown. Courtesy of Lucina Thompson Beeching

Lillian Avedian

Lillian Avedian is a journalist based in Los Angeles, California. She has written for the Daily Californian, Hetq and the Armenian Weekly, covering topics ranging from the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Armenia to the Armenian feminist movement on Instagram. She is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley with a Bachelor of Arts in Peace and Conflict Studies and a Bachelor of Arts in Armenian Studies, and applies her human rights expertise to uncover silenced narratives. When she is not on the hunt for a story, Lillian enjoys writing poetry and attending quarantine “Zoom-ba” classes.

Latest posts by Lillian Avedian (see all)

Read original article here.

[armeniaitn]

Project SAVE unlocks archives, launches online collections database

New Post has been published on https://armenia.in-the.news/society/project-save-unlocks-archives-launches-online-collections-database-52113-19-08-2020/

Project SAVE unlocks archives, launches online collections database

Near East Relief staff members. Seated: The gentleman on the left is unknown, Dr. Khosrov Krikorian is holding his son. His daughter stands on the left next to sisters Lousaper and Anna Kussajikian. Photo taken near Beirut, Lebanon on September 19th, 1925. Photographer unknown. Courtesy of the children of Harry and Lousaper Sarmanian

In 1924, Lousaper and Anna Kussajikian were reunited after years of painful separation through a photograph. The Kussajikian sisters were born in Marash in the Ottoman Empire and survived massacres that claimed the rest of their family members. Lousaper joined the Near East Relief as a young refugee and worked as a nurse midwife at several facilities in Syria. When she sent a photo of herself to a friend in Cyprus, the photo ended up reaching her sister Anna at a Near East Relief orphanage in Greece. Lousaper arranged for Anna to be brought to Beirut, where they lived until they immigrated to Watertown, Massachusetts in 1929. 

The incredible story of the Kussajikian family is one of many in a collection of photographs preserved by Project SAVE. Project SAVE’s archives include photos of Lousaper in orphanages with other young refugees, in clinics with members of the medical staff and seated alongside her sister and friends. These are just a few photographs of the nearly 45-thousand amassed by Project SAVE in the past 40 years.  

The idea for Project SAVE was born 50 years after Lousaper and Anna Kussajikian’s story, in the 1970s in the United States back when Ruth Thomasian was a costume designer in New York City. She was asked to work on a theatrical play set in 1890s historic Armenia. When she couldn’t find photographs for visual research, she went straight to the source. 

She spoke with with senior Armenians, many of them survivors of the Armenian Genocide, visited their homes, looked through their old photo albums and listened to their stories. She was struck by how enthusiastic people were to share their photographs that otherwise might be lost, forgotten or destroyed. “I can always be a costume designer, but I can’t always have these people, eager and willing and able, to talk with me,” Thomasian stated in a recent interview with the Weekly. So she left the theater and founded Project SAVE with the goal of salvaging Armenian photographs from the dustbins of history, a project that would occupy her for the rest of her life. “I followed my instincts, which means you follow what your soul tells you to do,” she asserted. 

Project SAVE has since flourished into a historical resource for Armenians to connect with the hidden stories of their ancestors in a new and tangible way. This week, 45 years after its founding, Project SAVE launched an online collections database, where people worldwide can search among hundreds of photographs and access rare images. This is the first time the public will be able to view and interact with these historical photographs and learn about their origins, who is pictured and what they were doing at the time. “Our mission is to preserve these photographs and the people and the culture so that they can be seen and shared,” explained Project SAVE executive director Tsoleen Sarian. 

Kindergarten graduation class, Armenian Girls’ High School, Adapazar, Turkey 1904, photographer unknown. Courtesy of Arousiag Avedian Kashmanian and Marie Bedikian

The Project SAVE collection captures a cultural heritage by composing a visual catalogue of Armenian practices and customs across time. The database is far more in-depth than posed portraits paid for by wealthy families. They also offer glimpses of quotidian routines: people meeting in the streets, children attending school, trading at the marketplace. They depict average people outside the purview of history working, eating, celebrating and moving through life together. Project SAVE is committed to celebrating the positive aspects of Armenian culture and allowing for the continuation of life through the preservation of photos in order to “help us see, literally see, who we are as Armenians and the contributions we’ve made to society globally,” as stated by Sarian. 

Street in Van, circa 1890 to 1892. Photograph by Reverend Frederick D. Greene, an American missionary to Van. Courtesy of Marie Bashian Bedikian

This undertaking is perhaps best reflected by the Missionary collection, the first photo gallery to be digitized and released alongside the online collections database. The Missionary collection, consisting of 500 photographs captured between 1900 to the 1920s, includes photos taken by Christian missionaries deployed in the Middle East and Near East Relief workers. It is unique in that it offers an intimate perspective into the lives of missionaries and Armenians during a time frame from which images are difficult to come across. While photography was banned during the Armenian Genocide, missionaries from the United States were equipped with personal cameras and took the opportunity to document their experiences and observations.

The Missionary collection provides an expansive look into a complicated period of history. The photographs document the encounter of East and West, like the differences between the missionaries’ and locals’ styles of dress. They also exhibit interactions between different communities, including Armenians, Greeks, Turks and Kurds, in shared communal spaces, like a marketplace. They expose images of resilience and altruism, depicting people at refugee camps and the volunteer physicians who tended to them. 

Konya bazaar, the wood market, 1919, photographer unknown. Courtesy of Araxi Hubbard Dutton Palmer

These photographs constitute relics of a distant past, yet they are also in conversation with the present moment. This collection not only illustrates a dynamic and rich image of a particular place and time 100  years ago, but it also has a broad impact in shedding light on imminent questions that concern people around the globe. 

The photographs include representations of refugees in the Middle East, an issue that is eminently relevant as the number of displaced persons around the world continues to rise. They demonstrate inspiring service on behalf of missionaries who uprooted their lives in the West to travel to sites of atrocities in unfamiliar lands to offer their humanitarian assistance. 

In contemplating the collection, Sarian reflected on the Armenian government’s commitment to provide aid to Lebanon in light of the recent explosion in Beirut. This pledge is rooted in a history of receiving and offering help in times of suffering, encapsulated by the exchange between missionaries and survivors of the Armenian Genocide and other massacres revealed in the photo collection. “I think about what we had to go through as a people and how we did and how we continued to contribute and thrive,” Sarian remarked. “It’s inspiring to see how people helped us and how we continue to help.”

The photographs also complexify modern readings of history by providing diverse and unexpected portrayals of everyday life. 

“In this picture, I don’t know who’s Armenian, who’s Turk, who’s Kurd,” Sarian stated, referring to one of the marketplace photographs. “They’re just people. No one’s running away. No one’s being hurt. It’s just people at the market.”

This diversity is further rendered in other photographs documented by Project SAVE outside of the Missionary gallery. Photographs collected from throughout the twentieth century across continents reflect a myriad of Armenian histories. The cultural heritage they preserve resists homogenizing notions of a single Armenian experience. They push back on the idea, for example, that the Armenian community just includes wealthy elites, by representing working class Armenians from all sectors of society. 

Food distribution center at Yeni Mahalle camp, Adana, 1909 Courtesy of the family of Harry G. Dorman

The photographs simultaneously testify to the threads that unite an incredibly heterogeneous global community. Photos from Armenia and throughout the vast diaspora reveal continuities in cultural elements such as dance, food, music celebration and other traditions across space and time into the present day, as exhibited in a previous digital gallery Our Armenian Spirit. The result is a photographic heritage that attests to an expansive and ever-evolving understanding of Armenian identity. 

Such photos can connect with people living in cities as different as Buenos Aires, Argentina and Glendale, California with large Armenian populations, as well as with those living in areas with little access to other Armenians. They establish links between Armenians residing in countries like Syria or Iran today and 100 years ago. They might resonate with Islamized or hidden Armenians, Armenians who don’t speak the language or practice Christianity and Armenians who identify as mixed race. They do so by unearthing photographs and stories that reveal similar cultural practices at the heart of Armenian identity that transcend facile or constructed distinctions.  

“The more images people have of what it means to be Armenian, the broader [and] more cosmopolitan we can make that definition,” Sarian asserted. “That’s why it is important to be able to have an archive, a place where these photographs are collected so they can be shared.”

This viewpoint speaks to the importance of the new online collections database. In forming the digitized archive, which will grow and develop over time, photographs are not only preserved, but also held, catalogued, documented and shared widely. 

History does not exist in the past. It is internally contested and in continuous dialogue with the present. The formation of a living, thriving archive of photographs opens up newfound possibilities for studying history by allowing the public to directly interact with its records and reflect upon their bearing on the current moment. 

It also personalizes the discipline by setting forth multitudinous narratives of the hidden individuals who comprise history, whose names traditionally cannot be found in history textbooks. 

Thomasian studied history as an undergraduate student, but says she  was dissatisfied with the way the discipline was presented to her. With Project SAVE, she is pursuing her preferred type of historical narrative: people history. “People history is really about having conversations with people. It didn’t start academically, because academics don’t really talk with people to gather their information. They stay in their ivory buildings and don’t get out among the people,” she explained. Through Project SAVE, Thomasian and the organization’s other team members have the opportunity to create a new mode of studying history by redeeming the memories of regular individuals and recognizing the importance and value of their distinct stories for future generations. 

“The idea of these images, a lot of them are unknown. Unknown places, unknown people. But their image is still important. Somehow, I think of it as helping them come back to life almost,” Sarian claimed. 

This hope extends into Project SAVE’s endeavors to make the photographs widely available and usable. Project SAVE collaborates with organizations like the Shoah Foundation to create curriculum about the Armenian Genocide. The database will be available for teachers and researchers to search for primary source material on topics ranging from immigration to fashion. Finally, Project SAVE shares images from the database on social media platforms such as Instagram to bring them to new audiences. These initiatives all reflect the aim to amplify these historic photographs within the Armenian community and beyond. 

The title of the organization stands for Project “Salute Armenian’s Valiant Existence.” Thomasian chose the word “save” before creating an acronym, because she was keenly aware that she was saving people’s stories by providing detailed attention and care to documenting photographs that are too often overlooked and thrown away. The acronym was born as an ode to the Armenian Genocide survivors whom she first interviewed for the project and their undeniable courage.  

Yet the meaning of the name extends beyond this group of people. The project honors Armenian ancestry by placing individuals whose narratives have been neglected or threatened with erasure at the center of history. It saves Armenians today by connecting them with their past and extolling the diversity and wealth of their heritage. 

“These people are not lost and forgotten,” Sarian upheld. “Like you and me, they had families, they had jobs, they had parents, they had children, they studied, they worked, and they left a mark on this earth, and their image survives.”

Two unidentified young women posing with a donkey. The Near East Relief star is visible on their hats. Sivas, Turkey, 1919, photographer unknown. Courtesy of Lucina Thompson Beeching

Lillian Avedian

Lillian Avedian is a journalist based in Los Angeles, California. She has written for the Daily Californian, Hetq and the Armenian Weekly, covering topics ranging from the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Armenia to the Armenian feminist movement on Instagram. She is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley with a Bachelor of Arts in Peace and Conflict Studies and a Bachelor of Arts in Armenian Studies, and applies her human rights expertise to uncover silenced narratives. When she is not on the hunt for a story, Lillian enjoys writing poetry and attending quarantine “Zoom-ba” classes.

Latest posts by Lillian Avedian (see all)

Read original article here.