Shushi Fine Art Museum welcomed 3,000 visitors last year

March 30, 2017 By administrator

Shushi Fine Art Museum opened its doors to 2,934 visitors, including 342 foreigners last year, Director at the museum Lusine Gasparyan has told Artsakhpress agency.

Mrs. Gasparyan referred to statistics, saying visitors mainly from Russia, the U.S., Iran and France attend the museum.

“One distinct feature of the museums is the rich list of donators and the wide geography of the exhibits from Artsakh, Armenia, Georgia, Russia. U.S., France, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Madagascar, etc.” Gasparyan informed.

The director underlined that the museum familiarizes and connects the public with displays of rare art works.

Erdogan crackdown reaches the arts, Theater actors concerned “witch hunt”

August 6, 2016 By administrator

erdogan-art Theater actors are the latest group targeted by the Turkish government’s post-coup crackdown. Professional associations have labeled it a “witch hunt.”

Many intellectuals and artists unrelated to the coup attempt have now been included in Turkey’s latest lay-off frenzy. One of the victims of the 1980 military coup, director Ragip Yavuz, is in shock: “I was investigated in different periods. I was fired from the theater during the [1980 coup] period. Yet for the first time, I am being investigated to somehow see if I am involved in the Gulen movement and whether I am pro-coup d’etat. This is both shocking and degrading.”

Yavuz is one of tens of thousands of people in Turkey who have lost their jobs following the failed coup. Dismissals began in city theaters around Istanbul. Along with Yavuz, six staff actors and one civil servant were removed due to their alleged ties to the coup. In addition, 20 subcontracted actors were dismissed because of a “lack of performance.”

A joint communique titled “Neither Coup nor State of Emergency” issued Thursday by nearly 20 professional associations – intellectuals, journalists, writers, poets and theater actors and actresses unrelated to the coup – says they are the victims of a “witch hunt.”

“Everyone involved in the coup attempt has to be brought to justice and be punished based on the laws,” reads the communique. “However, the government, seizing this opportunity, is taking steps to liquidate all opposition… to achieve absolute political power.”

‘Art requires freedom of thought’

Levent Uzumcu, one of the co-signers of the communique and the president of the Istanbul Municipal Theater Actors Association (ISTISAN), believes that the state of emergency is being used as a tool against those in opposition to the government.

“It is being used against those who do not approve of the government’s education, economy, or foreign affairs policies,” he said. “When one looks at the names of our dismissed friends, they by no means would be involved with any religious sect or organization.”

“Art requires freedom of thought,” Uzumcu added. “Our colleagues are among the best actors in Turkey. Our viewers know this very well.”

Uzumcu, himself fired from his job, was one of the leading actors during the Gezi Park demonstrations in 2013. He was dismissed right after the protests because of a political speech he gave at a Socialist International meeting in Istanbul. His press briefings and social media posts were also used as evidence against him.

Crackdown needs investigating

Sevinc Erbulak, an actress who lost her job, says she is not happy about being labeled a coup supporter.

“Naturally, I had an opinion and a stance of my own about what has been going on in my country, in what I wrote, drew or thought, or what I said based on what we have been through at the theater,” said Erbulak. “But the situation or the trap or whatever it is we are currently in, is beyond my mind.”

Erbulak added that what needs to be investigated is the source of the current post-coup crackdown.

One of the dismissed actors, Ragyp Yavuz, says many of the productions planned for the opening of the new season in October are now in jeopardy. Quite a few of the subcontracted actors dismissed for “lack of performance” had important roles in the plays, Yavuz said.

The Istanbul Municipal Theater administration refused to answer journalists’ inquiries due to “an ongoing legal process.”

Many vacant positions unfilled

Istanbul Municipal Theater is one of Turkey’s most controversial art institutes due to political interference. According to the performers, the government is trying to have more influence over which plays are performed. There are also increasing calls to close state-funded art institutions.

Uzumcu said that while 180 performers are employed as staff, just as many positions remain vacant. “No one is being hired for those vacant positions,” he said. “Why not? Because if they are filled, city theaters will continue to perform and they don’t want that.”

“I am worried that within this dust storm, before anyone realizes what is going on, all state-funded art institutions, including the Municipal Theater, state theaters, and the Presidential Symphony Orchestra may be shut down by governmental decree,” Uzumcu said. “The butchery we are observing right now is mind-boggling.”

Source: http://www.dw.com/en/theater-actors-concerned-as-turkeys-post-coup-crackdown-reaches-the-arts/a-19452001

Remembering the Armenian holocaust in art

September 17, 2015 By administrator

Armenian holocaust art

Exclusive: Marisa Martin highlights brave expressions at century mark of genocide

Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians? – Adolph Hitler, arguing for success of his “final solution”

What do these things have in common?

A painted hell for rotten politicians
The Armenian holocaust
Leon Trotsy’s ramblings
A theatre for jellyfish?

Nothing really – but they all take a bow at Istanbul’s 14th Art Biennial, Sept. 5 – Nov. 1, 2015.

Situated in a nation philosophically at war with civilization over their national holocaust denial, the Biennial commenced with trumpeting and international attention – but little of that has gone to the art so far.

Opening to the news of yet more war and oppression in Turkey, the massive art exhibit made a surprisingly adroit turn to face the day’s troubles. New treachery and deceit from Turkey included sudden airstrikes against Kurdish militia instead of the coordinated assaults on ISIS they had promised to the U.S.

Curator Carolyn Christov-Bakargie, artist Pelin Tan and editor Anton Vidokle responded by calling Biennial artists to “suspend their work for 15 minutes” in support of Turkey’s Kurdish community. Suspending work was symbolic, but few artists followed through, since it required them to shoot themselves in the foot by remaining silent at their own presentations.

Gestures of contempt are balefully common in the West, but now the Turks are their hosts, making things dicey for native artists. Even using the forbidden term “Armenian genocide” can land you in a cell (according to Article 301 of the Turkish penal code). This is a live political grenade where bombs, slaves and absolute terror reign within hours of Istanbul and its sophisticated art shows.

Long before, Christov-Bakargiev had her sights on the Armenian holocaust and considers it timely to speak to the black cloud of collective guilt over Turkey, as well as ethnic cleansing in any place.

“The ghosts are the ghosts of history … [as well as] the very nationalistic attitude towards the Kurds that caused so many deaths also in recent years,” she says. “Turkey has so many wounds that are not healed.”

The year 2015 marks a full century since the “great crime” or what Armenians call “Medz Yeghern.” Associated with 1915, Turks had intermittently scrubbed the nation of Armenians, or specifically Christians, until they ran out at about 1.5 to 2.7 million. This was the swan song act of the Ottoman Empire and pretty much sums it up.

As a “diplomatic act,” 13 artists were asked to create works related to the world’s first prototype for modern genocide. Most of these were Armenian or of Armenian descent. The sponsors, Dilijan Art Initiative, accomplished this on a roll of critical acclaim. Their Armenian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale won the “Golden Lion award for best national participation” earlier in 2015.

Fourteen paintings by famed modernist painter Paul Guiragossian grace the exhibit. Born to parents of the Armenian diaspora, his work often relates to wandering and force displacement. His paintings are almost all columnar, appearing as tightly packed humanity, claustrophobic and with little movement.

Works by the tormented Ashile Gorky are among Armenian survivors of the last century who immigrated to America. Gorky’s mother died of starvation in the artist’s arms during a forced march, and the rest of his short life wasn’t much cheerier.

At a Greek school, Haig Aivazian performs a song by Armenian-Turkish oud master Udi Hrant Kenkulian, a survivor of the genocide. Perhaps the venue isn’t significant, but Greeks fared little better than Armenians, with about 1.5 million Greeks either murdered or forced out of the Ottoman Empire until 1923. Their genocide wasn’t racially based, it was religious. Their target was all Christianity.

Iraqi-American Jewish artist Michael Rakowitz added an impressive installation of plaster-cast of architectural details. Originals were created by Armenian craftsmen throughout Istanbul, something they excelled at. Many important buildings still bear their marks in Turkey’s largest city.

Focus from the art organizers was on Syrian refugees, murdered Kurdish civilians and at least implied the love/faux-hate relationship Turks seem to have with ISIS and other Islamic terror groups. Muslim imperialism that sent genocide and pillage across Armenia in 1915 are the parents of ISIS (although it is terribly politically incorrect to actually admit such a thing).

Turkey’s unacknowledged acts of anti-Christian hate have been like a huge rotted corpse they’ve been unable to bury by a million denials. “Armenian holocaust? What holocaust? Anyway there is no such thing as ‘Armenian’.”

Sources claim that Turks now open the border to ISIS and fund, train, trade and arm them. Considering this, ISIS representatives may be brokering deals with Turks, staying in the same hotels or treated in Istanbul’s hospitals within meters of the Biennial’s art exhibits.

Christov-Bakargiev and other organizers displayed no fear over the loaded issues they cover (in the midst of the place of their conception in some cases). She claimed that they were never censored to this point. The Biennial is privately financed and supported with no sponsorship by the Turkish government.

Other Armenian-related pieces sprinkle Istanbul. Belgian-born artist Francis Alÿs offered a black and white film, “Silence of Ani,” with children from Eastern Anatolia using bird whistles to create songs. Filmed in the ruins of a ghost town near the Armenian border, emptiness and desolation symbolize the annihilated regions that Turkey seized or destroyed.

Actual title and vague theme of the exhibit is “Saltwater: a Theory of Thought Forms.” Sea water features in a few works and is referred to in artist’s statements as well as becoming part of the medium of some pieces. Thought forms? Conveniently, that could be slapped onto anything, even a genocide that began about 1894 or earlier.

If there must be so much politicizing of art, at least it is finally relevant. Artists and some exhibits at the Biennial support actual victims and observe a major crisis in real time. Most contemporary “political art” is only an excuse to further personal grandiosity or to beat a dead horse saddled with Marxist-Leftist trivia.

Curator Christov-Bakargiev speaks confidently about the power of art to “shape souls” and affect politics. “Whether the action will have any effect on the Machiavellian deals being done behind closed doors, I’m not sure,” she admitted to the press there.

Byzantine in more than one sense, the Biennial hosts at least 100 participants including artists, writers and even neuroscientists, with almost as many venues. It is intentionally difficult, and in some cases impossible, for viewers to see the entire thing, a fact Christov-Bakargiev acknowledges but thinks is not too important. Works are situated in a steam bath, a house where Leon Trotsky once lived and under the Marmara Sea, as well as traditional galleries. They straddle both the European and Asian coasts of the Bosphorus.

Brazilian artist Cildo Meireles offered his drolly-titled painting, “Project hole to throw dishonest politicians in” – which could be a light jab at Turkey’s often grandiose and brutal leaders. Christov-Bakargiev claims one of Meireles’ works is the conceptual platform for the entire Biennial Exhibition, and this is his sole contribution, so …

Although most of the world shares her concerns, it isn’t likely have much effect other than encouraging some Turkish dissidents and the Kurds (who are mentioned often). Amy Shaw for the Art Newspaper summed this up well. “The painting (by Meireles ) is a tongue-in-cheek solution, a metaphor for how to deal with corrupt statesmen, but ultimately the work – and the biennial as a whole – is futile in the face of so much suffering.”

Perhaps the tone of the Biennial and the “Project Hole” painting is best illuminated by remarks of the world’s politicians. Continuing policy of all U.S. presidents except Reagan, the words “Turkey” and genocide” never passed their lips in one sentence. (Reagan issued a written statement acknowledging the genocide.)

Obama promised to deal with this while campaigning, yet it is no shock he steadfastly refuses. Even after this pledge to the world: “I will recognize the Armenian genocide. … America deserves a leader who speaks truthfully about the Armenian genocide and responds forcefully to all genocides. I intend to be that president.”

Well, he forgot, consistent with a policy of never offending Muslims. This covers both Boko Haram and marauding, genocidal Turks a century ago. To be fair, America’s Congress hasn’t officially acknowledged the Armenian holocaust either, for purely political reasons.

On the April 24, 2015 centenary anniversary of the Armenian holocaust, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent statements trivializing the genocide as equal to suffering “of every other citizen of the Ottoman Empire.” This includes thousands who were actively slaughtering Christians – and it may have been quite tiring, chasing millions across deserts into oblivion. In spite of this, Erdogan “sincerely shared their pain.”

Would it be wrong to hope Erdogan and those denying holocausts and creating new ones may indeed “share their pain” at some near point?

But I had better place a little disclaimer here for their sake: The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any agency or person related to the 14th Istanbul Biennial.

Sources

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Source: http://www.wnd.com/2015/09/remembering-the-armenian-holocaust-in-art/#AuwzKMzSwqiwymhg.99

Pursuing Justice Through Art: 2015, Genocide Exhibit & Symposium

February 28, 2015 By administrator

A Multi-Cultural Genocide Exhibition and Symposium

Jennifer Rocco Stone, Blood of the Innocent,

Exhibition: March 18 – April 25, 2015

Opening Reception: Saturday, March 21, 2 – 4PM

Saturday, April 18, 1 – 4PM

LOWELL, MA – As April is International Genocide Month, the Whistler House Museum of Art is planning a Multi-Cultural Genocide exhibition and symposium entitled Pursuing Justice Through Art: 2015. In conjunction with the symposium, which will take place from 1:00 to 4:00 pm on Saturday, April 18, there will be an art exhibition which will be presented in the Parker Gallery. The exhibition runs from March 18 to April 25, where works of art will be displayed by artists whose themes are rooted in genocide and holocaust memories and commemoration. The opening reception for the exhibition will take place on Saturday, March 21 from 2:00 to 4:00 pm.

The year 2015 is significant in genocide history. It is the 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, the 70th Anniversary of the end of the Jewish Holocaust, and the 40th Anniversary of the Cambodian Genocide.

The word “genocide” was coined in 1944 to name a particularly shocking and horrific crime of violence. It was hoped it would never happen again. Genocide is the systematic and widespread extermination or attempted extermination of an entire national, racial, religious, or ethnic group. Genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law.

More than 262 million people throughout the world were murdered as a result of genocide in the 20th century. Armenian, German, Cambodian, Bosnian, Guatemalan, Rwandan, Sudanese and Native Americans are only a few of the nationalities that have been affected by genocide. It is the hope that education and awareness through the medium of art can be used to help ensure a more peaceful future in the 21st century.

Gagik Aroutiunian, The Family, Life Goes On

“We are very proud to be presenting this important program to the public,” says Whistler House Museum of Art president and executive director, Sara Bogosian. “It was inspired by Arshile Gorky, the Father of Abstract Expressionism, who is one of the artists in the Whistler House Museum of Art collection. Gorky is considered to be one of the most famous survivors of the Armenian Genocide,” added Bogosian.
The symposium will include experts in the field of genocide studies including:

Diana Der-Hovanessian: Der-Hovanessian, a New England born poet, was twice a Fulbright professor of American Poetry and is the author of more than 25 books of poetry and translations. She has awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Poetry Society of America, PEN/Columbia Translation Center, National Writers Union, Armenian Writers Union, Paterson Poetry Center, Prairie Schooner, American Scholar, and the Armenian Ministry of Culture. Her poems have appeared in Agni, American Poetry Review, Ararat, CSM, Poetry, Partisan, Prairie Schooner, Nation, etc., and in anthologies such as Against Forgetting, Women on War, On Prejudice, Finding Home, Leading Contemporary Poets, Orpheus and Company, Identity Lessons, Voices of Conscience, Two Worlds Walking, etc. She works as a visiting poet and guest lecturer on American poetry, Armenian poetry in translation, and the literature of human rights at various universities in the USA and abroad. She serves as president of the New England Poetry Club.

Kim Servart Theriault PhD: Dr. Theriault holds a Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Virginia and is currently Associate Professor of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at Dominican University in River Forest, IL. She has several academic publications to her credit including Rethinking Arshile Gorky and the essay “Exile, Trauma, and Arshile Gorky’s The Artist and His Mother” and the published catalog for the Philadelphia Museum of Art exhibition Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective. She has given art historical lectures at venues such as the Library of Congress, National Gallery of Art, and Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, and universities such as Oxford, the University of London, UCLA, Berkeley, and the University of Michigan.

Dr. Elliott W. Salloway: Dr. Salloway is the USA founder of Project eXodus, an international organization that explores the issues of genocide and human nature through art exhibitions, raising awareness throughout the world. As a faculty member at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, he has used art extensively as a teaching tool. Dr. Salloway has been a periodontist in Worcester for 49 years and is an avid painter and photographer whose works have been exhibited at the Miami Historical Museum, Worcester City Arts, Boston City Arts, The New Gallery in Boston, Panopticon Gallery in Boston and Waltham, Arts Worcester, and the Davis Art Gallery. He studied art at Boston’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts and the Worcester Art Museum. Dr. Salloway’s works of art will also be included in the genocide exhibition.

Sayon Soeun: Soeun is a survivor of the Cambodian Genocide featured in the documentary, Lost Child: Sayon’s Journey. He was abducted at the age of six, exploited by the Khmer Rouge, his family life and education stolen. His recovery and redemption from unimaginable evil entails his transition from an orphanage in a refugee camp to adoption by a loving American family. After more than 35 years, he recently made contact with brothers and a sister he assumed were dead. The documentary follows his journey back to Cambodia to heal himself by finding the family that let him slip away and forgiving himself for his complicity as a Khmer Rouge child soldier.

Artists featured in the art exhibition are well-known painters, sculptors, textile artists, and collectors specializing in this genre. They include: Mohammed Ali and Al Asadi, Gagik Aroutiunian, Bayda Asbridge, John Avakian, Ani Babaian, Stephen Clements, Ellen Davison, Adrienne Der Marderosian, Dave Drinon, Charlotte Eckler, Amy Fagin, Fanardjian (loaned by Stephen Dulgarian), Lynne Foy, Gillian Frazier, Charles Gallagher, Mary Hart, James Higgins, Raymond Howell (loaned by Eve Soroken), JoAnn Janjigian, Andrew Ellis Johnson, David Jones, Lucine Kasbarian, Mico Kaufman, Chantha Khem, Puthearith Kret, Sandra Lauterbach, Markus Lewis, Adam Mastoon,Talin Megherian, Crissie Murphy, Ruth Naylor, Marsha Nouritza Odabashian, Judith Peck, Dany Pen, Sandra Presley, Bill Reedy, Hope Ricciardi, Jennifer Rocco Stone, Alain Rogier, LinDa Saphan, Susanne Slavick, Jessica Sperandio, Rose Sielian Theriault, Nora Tang, Sopheap Theam and New England Quilt Museum’s Community Quilters, Rita Thompson, Robert Thurlow, Holly Tomlinson, Carol Vinick, Denise Warren

The exhibition and symposium are free to the public. The program is supported in part by a grant from the Lowell Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency. Funding was also supplied in part by UMass Lowell, Moses Greeley Parker Lecture Series, and with the participation of NAASR (National Association of Armenian Studies and Research) and Artscope Magazine.

The Whistler House Museum of Art, located in Lowell, Massachusetts, is the historic birthplace of the famous American artist, James McNeill Whistler. Established in 1878 as the Lowell Art Association Inc., it is the oldest incorporated art association in the United States. It is known internationally for its distinguished collection of 19th and early 20th century New England representational art. The Whistler House hosts many exhibits, lectures, educational and community programs, concerts and an array of social events in the residence, gallery and adjoining Victorian park.

Pursuing Justice Through Art: 2015 A Multi-Cultural Genocide Exhibition and Symposium

February 26, 2015 By administrator

Hope Ricciardi
Diaspora
collage and oil on three fir panels

By Heather Linton

This exhibition brings attention to genocide, the fragmented history of various cultural groups, and art as a means of educating us about humankind’s inhumanity. The year 2015 is significant. It is the 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, the 70th Anniversary of the end of the Jewish Holocaust, and the 40th Anniversary of the Cambodian Genocide. Details on the symposium and related events will be listed here as they are added:

Save the Dates!

Exhibit Runs March 18 – April 25, 2015

Reception: Saturday, March 21, 2-4 pm

Symposium: Saturday, April 18, 1-4 pm

http://whistlerhouse.org/index.php/exhibits/parker-gallery/80-pursuingjusticethroughart2015

And

https://www.facebook.com/WhistlerHouseMuseumofArt

Exhibitiing artists of Armenian descent include:

Aroutiunian, Gagik

Avakian, John

Babaian, Ani

DerMarderosian, Adrienne

Dulgarian, Stepan

Janjigian, JoAnn

Kasbarian, Lusin

Megherian, Talin

Odabashian, Marsha Nouritza

Ricciardi, Hope

Sperandio, Jessica

Whistler House Museum of Art | 243 Worthen Street | Lowell | MA | 01852 USA

Art can be political’ – sculptor of Snowden-Assange-Manning monument

November 8, 2014 By administrator

Art is important when it gives the possibility for people to grow up, Italian sculptor Davide Dormino told RT. He has launched a campaign to raise money to erect a “monument to courage” – a statue of three whistleblowers, Assange, Manning, and Snowden.

The founder of the Frontline Club, Vaughan Smith, and his team were inspired to create the monument after Smith got to know Julian Assange, and “got to see some of the documents that he was releasing from Bradley Manning.”

“I felt that is very important that the public do something to support. The reality is that these whistleblowers are our friends… whistleblowers are sustaining democracies by providing us with accurate information that we are not getting from our rulers,” Smith told RT.

The sculptor, Dormino said that it is going to be a public art project, and in his view art can be political.

“I think it is very important for people to learn from art. Art is important when it gives the possibility to people to grow up,” he said.

The idea of the project – which was developed by Dormino together with American journalist Charles Glass first popped up about a year ago, he said.

The life-size bronze statues of Assange, Snowden, and Manning standing on chairs almost as if they were speaking out will also have an empty fourth chair.

“That is empty for reason,” said Smith. “We are hoping that a member of the public can stand on that … it is a manner in which we can participate in it,” he added. The monument is Dormino’s vision and it is really “a way for public involvement.”

Smith believes that we are living in the “PR century” that is why “we have so much reliance on these whistleblowers.”

“These whistleblowers have ruined their lives for us and I think it is time for us to respond and the world is full of people who wish to respond and to support them,” said the journalist.

He argues that the project will be welcomed by people who support whistleblowers and appreciate what they have done for them.

Dormino said that anyone happy to share the idea should give money. “We also are using crowd funding and people give money for this. I think that they will be happy because everyone of us wants to be courageous and courage is contagious. People need to do something different if we want to have something different,” he told RT.

Smith claims that the project is going well. He said that if they continue to get support they will confidently reach the £100,000 they need. “We have had a good start but there is more to do. We need people to continue supporting it,” he told RT.

“I think people are a little bit angry. People see that we are getting such poor information from our ruling classes. There are a lot of people out there who want to support, who want to stand on the chair and be counted,” he added.

He believes that it is a way we can communicate with whistleblowers and they are not going to be forgotten.

“We have about £7000 at the moment. We need £100,000,” said Dormino. He also claims that nobody in the team will be paid for their work. “We do this because we believe in an idea,” he added.

Armenian Genocide through art: Impact of performance on recognition

September 7, 2014 By administrator

Any piece of art or performance by a Diaspora-Armenian artist can raise awareness of the Armenian Genocide and the Armenian Cause, but given the targets and audiences, they are not absolutely likely to replace state functions, says Violet Grigoryan, an Armenian writer and publicist.

“A piece by an independent artist – be it a painting, performance or whatever – is of more help to the audience and people who might be politically less aware of the Armenian Genocide, interstate relations and the Armenian history. It works better, raising more people’s awareness. But its effect is for the given moment only, with no guarantees or responsibilities for future,” she told Tert.am, commenting on US-Armenian rock musician Serj Tankian’s initiative to co-author the symphonic composition 100 Years ahead of the Armenian Genocide centennial.

The musician had earlier unveiled a plan for presenting the project on September 20 in Pasadena. Lark Musical Society has been chosen to premier the new composition.

Actress Lala Mnatsaknyan is of the opinion that it is very important to focus more coordinated efforts on the art or performance aspect while seeking an international recognition and condemnation of Genocide. Speaking to Tert.am, the actress said she expects more concrete results from Diaspora-Armenian artists but expressed regret that the events were not arranged much earlier.

“It is impossible to organize a concert in May and invite a couple of people here to sing, recite poetry and then leave. This should have been already done, but I do not see anything as yet. Perhaps they are planning to arrange it later. But why do it late? Didn’t we know about 2015 five years ago? This should have been done long ago so that we would be in that process now,” she said.

The actress proposed producing films and staging performances, noting in the meantime that they do not absolutely have to feature crying scenes or other sad episodes.

“It is important to organize globally interesting events, and not only on artists’ level. The more we have people speaking about Genocide, the better the international community will be aware of it. We, the individuals, do what were are supposed to, but we need a higher level of state assistance and a higher level of reaction. It is necessary to speak about this, because we are losing the moment,” Mnatsakanyan added.

source: tert.am