"THE ARMENIANS: SPIRIT OF SURVIVAL" EXHIBIT TO BE HELD IN BERGEN COMMUNITY COLLEGE
PanARMENIAN.Net
03.04.2009 00:52 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Bergen Community College in Paramus (US, NJ)
will celebrate the Armenian people’s triumph over tragedy with
the New Jersey premiere of "The Armenians: Spirit of Survival," a
photography exhibit sponsored by the College’s Center for the Study
of Intercultural Understanding, the Bergen Community College Peace,
Justice and Reconciliation Center and the Bergen Community College
Foundation.
Gallery Bergen, the College’s art exhibition space, will house the
display from Saturday, April 25, to Friday, May 22. The gallery
is located on the third floor of the College’s high-technology and
arts building.
According to The Armenian Reporter, the exhibit, provided by Project
SAVE Armenian Photograph Archives, Inc., chronicles the struggle of
the Armenian people in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as their
culture, religion, language and very existence were threatened by the
Ottoman, Russian and Persian empires, and then later by the Soviet
Union. The Armenian people were the targets of the Armenian Genocide,
which led to the deaths of as many as 1.5 million people in 1915. The
Armenians persevered – in spite of great loss – and found the spirit
needed to thrive.
Ruth Thomasian, executive director of Project SAVE, will conduct a
presentation on Tuesday, April 28 in Gallery Bergen on the origins
of the Armenian photograph archives and on the development of the
exhibition.
The Gallery Bergen display will feature 40 large photographs and
include text documenting the Armenians’ internment, mass execution and
subsequent diaspora from Asia Minor. Project SAVE’s 25,000 photographs,
which date from 1860, feature families living during the Ottoman,
Russian and Persian empires, the Soviet Socialist Republic of Armenia
and the Republic of Armenia.
Project SAVE, founded in 1975, is a Watertown, Mass.-based nonprofit
whose mission is to collect, document and preserve the historic and
modern photographic record of Armenians and their heritage. Thomasian
maintains the world’s only photographic archive chronicling the
journey of the Armenian people.