This artist panel will be discussing Ara Oshagan’s “Disrupted, Borders” exhibition currently showing in the Museum’s contemporary galleries. The panel will bring Oshagan together with artist and educator Ryann Casey, writer Hrag Vartanian, and Professor Christina Maranci, all of whom touch upon contemporary Armenian art and politics in their respective work. There will be a light reception afterwards which will take place in the Adele & Haig Der Manuelian Galleries.

The panel discussion will concentrate on the role that image-making plays in our understanding of diasporic identity, displacement, and our collective history. Of particular interest is the use of historical objects and family archives in the conversation around dislocation, borders, and (un)imagined futures.

Panelists:

Ara Oshagan is a multi-disciplinary artist, curator, and cultural worker whose practice explores collective and personal histories of dispossession, legacies of violence, and identity. He works in photography, film, collage, installation, book art, public art, and monument-making. Oshagan has published three books of photographs, is currently an artist-in-residence at 18th Street Art Center in Santa Monica, and a curator at ReflectSpace Gallery in Glendale.

Ryann Casey is a New Jersey based artist and educator. She is an adjunct Professor of Photography, Art History and Critical Theory at Stockton University, and her current photographic and curatorial projects focus on themes of loss, trauma, and memory. Along with “Disrupted, Borders,” Casey has curated a number of exhibitions surrounding Armenian artists and history.

Dr. Christina Maranci is one of the world’s foremost experts on Armenian architecture. The first woman and first person of Armenian descent to serve as Harvard University’s Mashtots Chair of Armenian Studies, Dr. Maranci has also supported cultural heritage programs in what is now Eastern Turkey for over a decade, with a focus on at-risk Armenian churches and monasteries.

Hrag Vartanian is an artist, curator, and critic and has written widely on Armenian artists and cultural production for over two decades. After co-founding Hyperallergic in 2009, Vartanian has served as the arts magazine’s editor-in-chief ever since. His writings have also appeared in the Brooklyn Rail, Huffington Post, Al Jazeera, and NPR.

This event and related exhibition have been generously sponsored by Michele M. Kolligian in memory of Haig Der Manuelian for his dedication and foresight in sharing Armenia’s rich history and culture with the world, including an impressive collection of Armenian Manuscripts that he gifted to the Armenian Museum.