Opening on 5th November 2021
On view until 19th November 2021

Diaspora as a phenomenon has engaged many nations for many centuries, whether in its compulsory and often violent kind or the voluntary type. One of the most important effects of it is multiculturalism which leads people to try and find a personal path and their own explanation of and for the society they live in. This exhibition is entirely about personal experiences shaped by my exploration and probing into the status quo and finding a platform, a foothold, in a smaller society shaped by the dominant one. And in this exploration, what can be more important than maintaining individuality?
Being called a minority creates a feeling of disengagement, not belonging, and being in between. I use art as a tool to create something else from my own duality.
In the first part of this exhibition, symbols of Iranian and Armenian architecture come together to show the inseparable mixture of these two cultures. An integration that is evident in arts and design and poetry and literature.
In a constant fluctuation of different concepts and elements, we create definitions that may only last for one moment. A moment after that, a new narrative or definition is formed. We cover those concepts with new descriptions to better understand us and to introduce ourselves more easily. In this constant endeavor- that happens every second and moment- the dualities that are part of my life release energies and forces similar to explosions from within. This is the price I pay to better understand speed, time, and space, in an ever-changing world that surrounds us. A world of signs filled with indicators of history, identity, and ethnicity, a world that eventually will carry all of us to the future.
In this iteration, there is a process of creating, covering, and rebuilding. The covering is not about the insignificance of things or ideas but an attempt to build something new, new foundations that can only belong to me.
Sanahin Babajanians