DAYS AND MEMORY
A blog of the Initiative in Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies

  • iWitness: Survivors of the Armenian Genocide of 1915

    Mar 6, 2025 5:30 pm by Brett Ashley Kaplan

    Images

    • A black hanging banner with white text reading "iWitness, Armenian Genocide 1915, Survivors of the Armenian Genocide of 1915. Artists: Ara Oshagan and Levon Parian. Architect: Vahagn Thomasian. iwitness1915.org
    • Three graduate students stand on the second floor of the Siebel center unfurling three banners of photos from the iWitness exhibit. Each photo is a portrait of an Armenian survivor looking directly at the camera.
    • Poster for the iWitness exhibit. The image is a photograph from the exhibit of an old Armenian woman looking directly at the camera. Text below.
    Today, three awesome graduate students came together with Nicholas Puddicombe (Sr. Associate Director of Operations & Experience, Siebel Center for Design) and me to install the first part of the iWitness exhibits at the Siebel center.
    Three graduate students stand on the second floor of the Siebel center unfurling three banners of photos from the iWitness exhibit. Each photo is a portrait of an Armenian survivor looking directly at the camera.

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    The images are breathtaking, absorbing, moving, enormous, and impactful. Please do go and check the exhibit out! (The building is open from 7am until midnight every day). We plan to install five more photo-fabrics of ten feet by ten feet on April 21st, in anticipation of photographer Ara Oshagan and Levon Parian’s talk at Siebel on April 24th. Details below and on poster. ENORMOUS thanks to Jarrett Newman, Lilia Medea Yaralian, and Alex Anoush Yaralian for volunteering to help out this morning! It was a wonderful collaborative effort and I so grateful! 



    A black hanging banner with white text reading

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    Poster for the iWitness exhibit. The image is a photograph from the exhibit of an old Armenian woman looking directly at the camera. Text below.

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    Please join us for the Initiative in Holocaust, Genocide, Memory Studies’ Annual Armenian Remembrance Event. We are thrilled that this year’s visitors are Ara Oshagan and Levon Parian, the brilliant photographers behind the moving iWitness project which has brought stunning images of survivors of the Armenian genocide to many sites as large scale installations and smaller, more intimate connections. HGMS has organized two exhibits and a talk: several large images will be on view after March 5th at the Siebel center for design. From April 10-May 31 an exhibit of smaller images and remembrances will be on display at the beautiful Art Gallery inside the Illini Union. On April 24th at 5pm, Oshagan and Parian will be in conversation (moderated by HGMS director Brett Ashley Kaplan) at the Starlight Room of the Siebel Center. On April 25th at 4pm there will be a reception at the Illini Union Art Gallery. We hope that this two-pronged exhibit will allow members of the community, students, faculty, and everyone to engage with the stories of these survivors. If you are teaching a class, please consider bringing students to the gallery and/or the Siebel center to view the work. Please help spread the word by sharing the attached poster (enormous thanks to Mel Miller for the poster!). All best, and thanks, Brett (bakaplan@illinois.edu)