News

Contextual Change

Moscow airport. Waiting to board the plane to Armenia. As I look around I think about how context around us affects us on the most cellular level. How the scale of buildings, the materials that are around us, people’s faces, colors, temperature etc, have an immediate effects on our mental and physical selves. I rewind to the last immediate contextual change that had taken place before the airport and that placed me in my father’s pickup truck driving to the airport in a context that is more personal to me.

Have and Have Not’s: Reflections on Shushi, Yerevan, and LA

I was in Sushi, a war torn city that was taken back a few years ago by a people that were determined to choose their own future and had made it happen. While I was buttering my toast, I was thinking, “Wow, everything I am eating here is purely organic” (I didn’t eat the hot dog). These organic products were what people in LA would easily pay top dollar for. I could already imagine it at Trader Moe’s, priced at $4 a jar, labeled “Organic Raspberry Jam” along with the butter and cheese.

Their Generation, My Generation - Berj Parseghian

Growing up, he describes how the mood of anger in his family about the past was one that he didn’t fully understand until he matured. “You're supposed to come to understand the past and move on, live life,” he says. “But some pasts are hard to move on from; some pasts won't leave a family or a nation alone. Some pasts define who you are. “

Their Generation, My Generation - Emineh Noravian

I’ve always learned from my mother, grandmother and great-uncle about our family history but it wasn’t until recently that I found out about who my great-grandfather was and what he did that really made me realize what an impact my role makes in the AYF. It gives me a great sense of pride to learn that my great-grandfather fought with some of the greatest figures of the ARF.

State of the Arts - Sako Design

Sako Shahinian was born on 1980 in Beirut, Lebanon. From a young age he picked up the pencil and began making marks on paper. Those marks quickly became images of what he saw and what he was curious about. Never letting down his pencil he nurtured and sharpened his skill until people called it talent. That recognition eventually got him attending Los Angeles County High School of the Arts and later In 2004 Sako, went on to graduate from Art Center College of Design with a bachelor of fine arts with honors in illustration.

State of the Arts - Bei-Ru

I was born and raised in Los Angeles - my parents moved to the U.S. in the mid-1970s from Lebanon. As a kid, my parents would play a lot of Armenian music in the house. We visited Armenia when I was 6, and my folks took me and my siblings to see orchestral concerts and operas. I think all of that nurtured my love for music. I also started taking piano lessons around the time of our Armenia trip, and stuck with it for about ten years.

State of the Arts - Rouben Malayan

I was born in Yerevan in the spring of 71. Went for four years to Terlemezian college of art (painting), continued to the academy (graphics) and in May 93 left Armenia to Israel. 16 years in Tel Aviv, 2 years in Amsterdam, now I am trying my luck back home in Hayastan. Many questions, few answers, but its an ongoing process of reconnection and I was prepared for it before I made the leap forward. Its challenging but very interesting experience.
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