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The Power of Emptiness: Norayr Chahinian’s exhibition at ACCEA

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The Power of Emptiness

March 9, 2016 – March 26, 2016

The Power of Emptiness
Norair Chahinian
(Official press release)
The photographs taken in Turkey by Sao Paulo (Brazil) born photographer Norair Chahinian strike viewers in a number of different ways.

First through their witnessing of life in various regions of Anatolia ‘from the outside’, by someone who has come all the way from across the world, thousands of kilometers afar. But more importantly, through their depiction ‘from within’ of the return of an Armenian to his roots in Maraş, Urfa, İskenderun, as he visits the land of his family after a gigantic lapse of one hundred years.

“The Power of Emptiness” is an attempt to come to terms with the potentials and the impossibilities embodied at the heart of this return, this witnessing.

It is the story of a fourth-generation Armenian forcefully torn apart and banished from his lands showing the courage to look the past, present and future straight in the eye.

Norair Chahinian was born in Brazil as the child of a family that had fallen victim to the Committee of Union and Progress’ genocidal politics against Armenians during the final era of the Ottoman Empire.

His grandmothers and grandfathers had lost their families during those days of catastrophe, took refuge in Aleppo, Syria, under dire circumstances and had migrated to Brazil, South America from there, sharing the fate of Armenians who like themselves were dispersed to all corners of the world.

Chahinian was raised in an Armenian diaspora community and internalized all elements of this identity. Norair Chahinian, who knew his family history thoroughly, learned Armenian and believed that the recognition of the Armenian Genocide is not a matter of retribution but of justice, was familiar with Turkey and Turks through a narrative weaved with deaths and violence.

He experienced a turning point in his life the moment he decided to expand this narrative by personally coming into contact with Turks living today and the lands that once belonged to his own family. The photographs in “The Power of Emptiness” present us with the observations Chahinian made precisely at this turning point.

This quest brought the photographer to Turkey where he knew no one, did not speak the language; where he was familiar neither with the climate nor the ways of the people. But in no way as a tourist.

He came here determined to build a bridge between the past and present, as the last link of a family who was the victim and witness of the catastrophe experienced one hundred years ago but had managed to live, survive and build a new life on the other side of the ocean.

Ensuing from this past and determination, there is absence and emptiness as well as life and the perpetuity of living in the photographs Chahinian took in different cities of Turkey. The emptiness that remains from those who died, who were forced into exile and the power of this emptiness is undeniably reflected in each and every frame.

The rainbow over the derelict churches, children playing on deserted streets, slogans of the military coup era written across Armenian epigraphs, an aggrieved suitcase in an empty home waiting as though it was left there only yesterday. The power of emptiness, the emptiness of power…

These photographs, which were taken by a person rendered homeless and rootless; depicting the journey towards a land where his source lies in order to fully establish his coordinates on earth and to take roots again, also express a universal quest.

In going back to his roots, and towards the local, Chahinian treads on a more worldly ground and becomes universal.

Rober Koptaş

Lusadaran’s third exhibition ‘Trouble in Paradise: Photography and constructions of femininity’ opens in Yerevan

July 17-31
HayArt Cultural Centre,
7a, Mashtots Avenue
Monday-Saturday
Opening 7-9pm, July 17

Nvard Yerkanyan. From the installation 'Round Table' 2014

“The feminine is a troublemaker, truly situated on the margins of play… Just at the right moment, a shift. A flick of the finger, or the ‘fin mot’, the heart of the matter. Never the ‘mot de la fin’, the final word.” Julia Kristeva, 1998

The exhibition “Trouble in Paradise” looks at the current perceptions of femininity in contemporary Armenian photography, represented here by the works of Svetlana Antonyan (Okean), Anush Babajanyan, Anna Davtyan, Vehanush Topchyan, Nvard Yerkanian and Nazik Armenakyan. These are accompanied by examples of 19th and 20th century commercial photography, which give a partial overview of the historical as well as international developments in the visual constructions of the feminine.

Svetlana Antonyan (Oceana). Untitled 2. 2014

In post-feminist vision of society and power, the disquieting and ‘troublesome’ aspects of femininity are often oppressed or relegated to daytime soap operas. Mass medias continuously exploit normative, sexualised images of femininity as a vital part of the ‘consumer paradise’. In this regard, photography has always been the medium most responsible for both, the commodification and the subversion of femininity as an object of visual (masculine) pleasure.

Anna Davtyan. From the series 'The Book of the Fox', 2011-13

It is also the space that makes the dialogue between the participating artists possible. Coming from different professional backgrounds, these practitioners are interested in the tensions produced by disruptive, ambiguous and contradictory aspects of femininity. They view it not as an aesthetic or a critically devalued construct, but an activity which can become a constructive force. Employing this transgressive and contradictory power, the artists place hegemonies in a state of tension and anxiety by playing with ubiquitous imagery drawn from television, cinema, painting, mythology and commerce.

In their works, archetypes of domestic, public, political, and natural spaces are disturbed and transformed into arenas of imagination, poetry, desire and play. Photography itself is fragmented in the process. It takes different forms (documentary, conceptual, performative, commercial and archival) that slip and spill out from conventional frameworks, while enabling novel ways of seeing and representing the real.

Anush Babajanyan. Tamara. 2008

Collectively, the close to fifty works exhibited here enter into an open-ended discussion regarding the performance of femininity and how it might be relevant to current thinking (by predominantly women artists) about identity, desire, gender and beyond.

“Trouble in Paradise” is the third exhibition organised in Armenia by the ‘Lusadaran’ Armenian Photography Foundation. The Foundation is dedicated to the collection, study and preservation of Armenian as well as other marginal photographic histories. It also seeks to promote the medium within the sphere of contemporary arts in Armenia.

Samvel Saghatelyan’s ‘Transromance’ takes on the domestic space in Yerevan

Sex and pornography are not innocent, but can they at least pretend to be so? These and other everyday questions are addressed in Samvel Saghatelyan’s exhibition ‘Transromance’, curated by Vigen Galstyan and opened at a private apartment in Yerevan on September 12, 2013 as a one-day event.

Composed of 11 mixed media photo-collages and one photocopy-collage, the series depicts the birth and development of a supra-male sexual fantasy.

Regarding body, gender and sexual desire as a cultural and political phenomenon, Saghatelyan attempts to find a small platform of pleasure and enjoyment in the cross-section of these issues. At this ambigous, liminal point, the abscence of clear positions and answers itself becomes a kind of a solution.

In the carnavalesque space of ‘Transromance’ power relations and sexual politics become masks – at once laughable, mutating, in a sense naive and in this particular game, always equal.

Referring to the underground and private apartment exhibitionս of the 1970s-80s Soviet period, the one-day presentation of ‘Transromance’ took place in a two bedroom flat in downtown Yerevan. Utilising this living environment, the exhibition transforms an ordinary domestic habitat into a laboratory of sexual myths.

The evening developed into a ‘happening’ as the over 100 visitors flooded in an out of the appartment until four am in the morning. Arthur Manukyan performed his renditions of Sayat-Nova on the guitar, conceptual artists put on impromptu performances and intellectuals took on the floor to give talks while guests debated the questions and ideas provoked by the show.

Սեքսն ու պոռնոգրաֆիան անմեղ չեն, բայց կարող են դրանք գոնե այդպես ձևանալ? Այս և այլ առօրյա հարցերին է անդրադառնում Սամվել Սաղաթելյանի ‘Տրանսռոմանս’ ցուցահանդեսը: Համադրված Վիգեն Գալստյանի կողմից, այն ներկայացվեց որպես մեկօրյա իրադարձություն, 2013 թվականի, սեպտեմբերի 12-ին, Երևանյան մի մասնավոր բնակարանում:

Կազմված իննը խառը տեխնիկայով արված ֆոտոկոլաժներից, շարքը պատկերում է գերտղամարդկային սեքսուալ մի ֆանտազմի զարգացումը:

Դիտարկելով մարմինը, գենդերը և սեռական ցանկության ‘ծնունդը’ որպես մշակույթային և քաղաքական երևույթ, Սաղաթելյանը փորձում է տվյալ խնդիրների հատման կետում գտնել հաճույքի և ազատության մի փոքրիկ հարթակ: Այս անորոշ, ապակողմնորշված և միջանկյալ կետում, հստակ դիրքորոշումների և պատասխանների բացակայությունը ինքնին ներկայանում է որպես լուծում: ‘Տրանսռոմանսի’ կառնավալային տարածության մեջ ուժային հարաբերությունները և սեռական քաղականությունը վերածված են դիմակների` միաժամանակ ծիծաղելի, փոփոխվող, ինչ որ առումով միամիտ և տվյալ խաղում` ընդմիշտ հավասարազոր:

Ակնարկելով սովետական շրջանի 1970-80 ականների ‘բնակարանային’, ընդհատակյա ցուցահանդեսները, ‘Տրանսռոմանսի’ մեկ օրյա ներկայացումը տեղի ունեցավ մասնավոր բնակարանում: Գործածելով այս ‘ապրող’ միջավայրը, ցուցահանդեսը վերծանում է կենցաղային տարածքը որպես սեքսուալ միֆերի լաբորատորիա: