The Armenian Studies Group (ASG) is beginning a new season, now meeting at the Armenian Institute. We come together to provide a safe space where researchers in Armenian Studies in all fields present work in progress and receive stimulating, encouraging feedback. ASG meetings are open to people directly involved in research on any aspect of Armenian studies. The ASG includes students, teachers, journalists, writers, graphic artists, photo-essayists and others.
Contact Susan Pattie if you wish to present your work (susanppattie@gmail.com)
The Armenian Institute is the host and home base for the ASG.
Next meeting: April 15, 2025 at 6:00 with Tsovinar Kuiumchian, Oxford University
“My house is full of ghosts”: the textile archive as a transgenerational communication zone”.
This ethnographic paper examines a family textile archive as a relational space where the legacies and presences of several generations of Armenian textile artists intersect. It argues that the affective and material qualities of the archive have enabled a family of Armenian artists to engage in a shared act of cultural preservation, from before the Armenian genocide to the present day. The ethnography follows contemporary American Armenian textile artist Deborah Valoma on her creative journey exploring traditional Armenian textile craft -- from the Fowler Museum in Los Angeles to her home studio in Berkeley, California, and ultimately to New York City, where her contemporary artwork found its place. Alongside her artistic exploration, a parallel narrative unfolds: an inherited collection of family heirlooms is transformed into an archive through Deborah’s practice, then brought into the world, where it continues to evolve beyond the artist’s control. By tracing the life of this archive, the paper opens the possibility of viewing it not just as a repository of information and knowledge, but as a dynamic space for intergenerational contact, politics, and sociality, collectively shaped across time and space. The paper suggests that in this case, ancestral relationships — mediated by the textile archive — can be understood as 'transgenerational communication' that defies the genocidal erasure of Armenian heritage and the rupture of familial and communal ties.
Tsovinar Kuiumchian is a doctoral candidate at St Peter’s College, University of Oxford. Combining visual, material and museum anthropology with political anthropology, her research examines the social and political significance of contemporary art and creative practices in the global Armenian community. She conducts her multi-sited ethnography online and offline in the US, Europe, Turkey and Armenia. Part of the Armenian diaspora, she was born and raised in Ukraine.