Beyond Waiting: Stories from the Turkey-Armenia Border Exhibition, Istanbul, Turkey ©
Onnik James Krikorian 2012
Having already been shown at the Galata Fotoğrafhanesi Fotoğraf Akademisi in Istanbul last year, the Beyond Waiting: Stories from the Turkey-Armenia Border multimedia exhibition finally hits Yerevan today and will run from 27 August to 7 September at the ACCEA/NPAK Armenian Center for Contemporary and Experimental Art. Without a doubt it’s one of the best cross-border media projects I’ve seen in the region and especially as it presents Armenia-Turkey relations and the closed border in a new and very compelling way.
The station workers waiting for years and years for a train that never comes; Gyumri’s Kima who have been waiting for years for a guest from Turkey to come and knock on her door; the children of Bayandur who break the silence of the border with their music; Sofia whose path crosses with the inhabitants of a Kars neighbourhood awaiting demolition due to urban gentrification plans, while she was looking for the traces of her grandfather; a Kurd and an Armenian whose voice try to reach each other as they face their past traumas do all call us to listen, speak and act “beyond waiting”.
Having seen that work already, I really have to say that both the trainers and the participants produced some excellent work.
Beyond Waiting: Stories from the Turkey-Armenia Border Exhibition, Istanbul, Turkey
© Onnik James Krikorian 2012
Hrant Dink Foundation, Galata Fotoğrafhanesi Fotoğraf Akademisi, Free Press Unlimited and Youth Initiative Centre of Gyumri have jointly organised the Multimedia Project for Promoting Dialogue with the support of the Consulate-General of the Netherlands and the British Embassy. The Project aims at establishing direct communication between photojournalists and photographers from Armenia and Turkey and enabling them to think collectively to promote dialogue between the two countries by making 5 joint multimedia productions.
The project has brought together 10 participants, 5 from Turkey, 5 from Armenia with prior experience in documentary photography/photojournalism in two multimedia workshops in İstanbul and in a photojournalistic trip to Kars and Gyumri.
Aleksey Manukyan, Anush Babajanyan, Armenuhi Vardanyan, Marianna Vardanyan and Sofia Danielyan from Armenia joined Anıl Çizmecioğlu, Arif Yaman, Derya Deniz Pekkıyıcı, Eren Aytuğ and Volkan Doğar from Turkey at the first multimedia workshop at İstanbul Tütün Deposu on September 12-18, 2011.
During the first workshop, they attended sessions on “Multimedia Production” by the documentary film maker Jack Janssen; “Multimedia Techniques” by the visual artist Sevgi Ortaç; “Documentary Photography” by the photographer Yücel Tunca and “Visual Storytelling” by the photographer Berge Arabian.
Beyond Waiting: Stories from the Turkey-Armenia Border Exhibition, Istanbul, Turkey
© Onnik James Krikorian 2012
I was particularly pleased to also be invited as one of the trainers, but work commitments prevented me from doing so. I did, however, participate in the second and final workshop held in Istanbul, Turkey, in September 2011 as well as the opening of the exhibition, also in Istanbul, last year.
In addition to helping out as the pieces were put together, I presented on my experience using social media for promoting alternative narratives, news and information in the context of the Nagorno Karabakh, an issue that has already frustrated attempts to open the Armenia-Turkey border.
In the last phase, all teams got together at a second workshop in İstanbul at Galata Fotoğrafhanesi from November 21 to 27, 2011 to finalise the editing of their multimedia productions. During the week, participants screened their work-in-progress and worked with Jack Janssen and Sevgi Ortaç to finalise their editing. The last workshop also hosted journalist and photographer Onnik Krikorian who shared his own project OneWorld using multimedia and social media for promoting dialogue between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Unfortunately, the multimedia shorts are not yet online, but my understanding is that they will be once the exhibition in Yerevan is over. Until then, if you’re in Armenia, you should definitely check it out at the ACCEA/NPAK Armenian Center for Contemporary and Experimental Art in Yerevan from 27 August to 7 September. It should also be exhibited in Gyumri afterwards.
Beyond Waiting: Stories from the Turkey-Armenia Border Exhibition, Istanbul, Turkey
© Onnik James Krikorian 2012
Meanwhile, two of the participants, Anush Babajanyan from Armenia and Arif Yaman from Turkey were interviewed by CivilNet. Anush’s words towards the end struck a particular note with me:
I would not necessarily like to see more of these kinds of projects because… they’re good, but.. I mean, they can’t continue forever. Something else has to be done. Something more expansive […] which I can’t really imagine right now. […] They begin out of questions and problems. If I say, yes, let’s continue this type of project that means the solution hasn’t been found yet so I wouldn’t like these kinds of projects to continue in that manner. It would be nice if these kind of projects happened on their own without organizations gathering people, but people just going and doing it on their own, just out of their natural interest and desire. That would be nice and that would be a more logical continuation of this project because our relationship and our getting to know each other is between us and our films which we created are for the people […]. That should hopefully transform into a more natural and humane relationship between the nations.
Couldn’t agree more and I hope that projects such as Beyond Waiting: Stories from the Armenia-Turkey Border make that a reality in the nearest future. Beyond Waiting indeed.
