Our second Salon Zoom-session was Treasured Objects, where we asked people to bring an object to show, sharing the story behind it. The treasures were surprising, wonderful and the stories so moving that we want to share them. This is the first group and more will follow. This Zoom-version of Treasured Objects has grown from the idea for our original exhibition and book by the same name at the Brunei Gallery, SOAS (2010) which accompanied the postcard exhibition by Osman Koker, “My Dear Brother, Armenians in Turkey 100 Years Ago”, also organized by the Armenian Institute.
In 1978 I came aged 16 to the UK with my family due to the impending Islamic Revolution in Iran. We sold everything and left Iran with a few suitcases of clothes and family photos. We also left all my extended family and crucially, my grandparents.
I missed my grandmother most of all and was terribly homesick. When some months later, she came to visit us for the first time, she asked if there was anything I wanted from home. Could I have the beautiful figurine of an Armenian lady from her mantlepiece?
It was fine china as I recalled, a slender figure with a pot balanced on one shoulder, in traditional costume with hair braided. My grandmother arrived to stay for 3 months. She opened her suitcase and I waited with baited breath. She flourished a figurine. But not the one I had in my mind's eye. This one was lumpy, heavy and crude. To some eyes, it could have been a masterpiece, made by Picasso, but not to mine. I hid my disappointment so as not to hurt her feelings.
I have grown to appreciate and love her, my 'Parskahay Frida', and she makes me smile when I look at her on my mantlepiece, everyday.
Karen Babayan, Artist
Taken in 1932, this is the oldest remaining photo we have as a family . It was one of the few items my Grandmother Luysapear Berberian managed to take out of their home when escaping the approaching Turkish troops in the invasion of Cyprus in 1974. It’s a special photo because it has 3 generations of the family together whilst holidaying in Platres, in the mountains of Cyprus, where they used to go every summer. We know the age of the picture because my dad is the chubby blond baby on the right. My Grandmother lost all her photos and family mementos in the genocide period so while the photographs in Cyprus were lost in the invasion, we are grateful that she was able to save this photo for all of us to cherish today.
Garo Berberian, Filmmaker
Our family was touring western Iran in the late 1960s when our car developed a mechanical fault just before reaching the city of Hamadan, the Ecbatana of the ancients. We stopped at a village, next to the workshop of a local potter. While we were waiting for my father to identify the fault and fix it - we knew he could do it - the potter, an elderly man, approached us and addressing me, asked if I would like to buy something from him. I chose this cup. It was sitting on my desk in Teheran and is now sitting on my desk in Ruislip. It is one of the few personal things that came with me to this country. For me it is not just a cup, but a repository of memories and images from a bygone age.
Gagik Stepan-Sarkissian, AI Librarian and Research Advisor
This Soviet-made watch belonged to my grandmother, whose parents came to Samsun from Kavala as part of the Turkish-Greek population exchange of 1923. This is one of the few objects that has travelled with me to London since I left my hometown of Samsun. My grandmother helped raise me and I lived with her until I went to university. I could not say goodbye to her or go to her funeral after she died with dementia, leaving this world with her youngest memories... When I entered her room after the funeral, I took this watch because I knew how much she loved wearing a watch, even though she did not know how to tell the time. Since then, this object acts as a reminder of her, not time. It is a treasured comfort of her memory, even her absence still tingles in my heart.
Şahika Erkonan, PhD Candidate
I began taking piano lessons at the ripe old age of 10 when my family moved to Cyprus for 2 years. My teacher was wonderful but soon moved to London. Getting rid of her unneeded household items, she sold my mother a mangal which had served as the family hearth and gathering place through many winters. She knew they wouldn’t need it in London. My mother knew it wasn’t needed in the U.S. but thought it was a beautiful memento of our stay in Cyprus. It sat beside the fireplace for years.
Back in London, my teacher’s son missed the mangal and the memories. Long-story-short – when he and I eventually met and later married, we brought the mangal to London where it sits by our fireplace. We love it.
Susan Pattie, AI Director
