About

Flesh, Immemorial is a creative experiment in undoing absence and exploring the kaleidoscopic super(im)position of Western Armenians onto their landscapes of origin.

What began with the poem entitled “Skin” – a love letter and balm for those who felt the echoes of the Armenian Genocide since the war in Artsakh – grew into a constellation of mixed media imprints to generate ancestral healing. It points toward a diasporic futurism and creative reclamation of land, belonging, and autonomy. As a radical intervention in a land from which we descend but may not have access to, I collaborated with participants materially, through archival and current day landscapes, sites, and maps. I collaborated with them through the ethereal, with stories, spirits, flora, and fauna. Such explorations are especially poignant for those who continue to survive displacement and live with intergenerational trauma.

Participants:
Ali Cat Chavez (Bitlis)
Emily Mkrtichian (Van)
Milena Abrahamyan (Lori)
Sara Abrams (Erzrum)
Satenig Mirzoyan (Palu)
Emma Basmadjian (Adana)
Patil Halajian (Marash)
Saana Araxi Abrahamian-Hoyt (Dikranagerd & Sis)

Skin

Whose body is this if not one I was given 
Whose skin am I in
unfamiliar to me

Ahh

I am in transit 

In the fold between the house I call home and the home-land

These lands
Of my flesh they resist the kiss of a sun that sets in the west and no other

I am other 
On either side of always
Neither whole nor satisfied until the only movement I follow is of the wind 
and the rivers 
that shape the landscape of my inheritance 

I mean the skin

The bodies of our kin

Are abound with the fire that we have tended through time

That one time
We knew that it was forever 
And that we
Are unequivocally 
Immemorial