Author: Lena Karagyozian

 

 

 

Three artists will represent Armenia at the Viva Arte Viva 57th Venice Biennale to be held May 13-November 26.

Young artist Rafael Megall will present the “Leopards in my blooming garden” exhibition. Any of his 15 works will illustrate the human-nature relationship.

“The garden is the Garden of Eden that symbolizes Armenia. Leopards are the people that live in that garden, live in harmony, but can be very dangerous if necessary, like the Armenian nation,” Megall told a press conference in Yerevan today.

Rafael Megall, 34, had a number of individual exhibitions at best art galleries of the world – in Florence, London, Paris, New-York and Toronto. He also participated in different biennales and won prizes and titles.

Brussels-based Lebanese Armenian sculptor and artist Jean Boghossian will present an exhibition titled “Fiamma Inestinguibile.” The name of the exhibition is inspired by the blowtorch flame, which Boghossian uses as a flamboyant brush, leading to a passionate quest as flames transform to create inextinguishable art.

Boghossian is one of the few artists globally who experiment by applying fire and smoke to various works. Fire is his artistic language of choice, and he uses a wide array of brushes and torches as his tools.

Armenia’s third representative Miro Persolja is of Slovenian descent and lives in Italy. He presented a large exhibition at the Armenian National Art Gallery in 2016.

Titled “Border no Border” Persolja’s exhibition will showcase how, through the language of art, some walls that divide nations can smoothly disappear.

Judging from the experience of the past years, Armenia’s Deputy Minister of Culture Arev Samuelyan believes that Armenia will not return from the biennale without achievements.

Armenia won the “Golden lion” in 2015 for the pavilion called “Armenity.”

This year the works will be displayed in two different venues: Collegio Armeno Moorat-Raphael, at Palazzo Zenobio, and Chiesa di Santa Croce degli Armeni, in Calle Dei Armeni.

The Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Armenia, represented by Svetlana Sahakyan, will be the commissioner of the Armenian national pavillion.

Şişli Provincial Organization of HDP has been holding “April 23,5 commemoration” for 5 years. This year, the police on winterfered with the commemoration on the occasion of 102nd anniversary of Armenian Genocide. The commemoratias held in the office of HDP, reports.

Speaking at the commemoration, Nor Zartonk spokesperson Norayr Olgar stated that genocide is continuing today in Kurdish cities: “Peace is impossible without confrontation. Victims of the genocide are everywhere.”

Melis Tantan from Şişli Provincial Organization stated that they want to relieve the suffering caused 102 years ago and the social trauma to some extent. Stating that the genocide hasn’t ended in 1915, Tantan said:

“The genocide continues with the changed names of old Armenian neighborhoods and with schools and streets named after Talat Pasha, who is one of the perpetrators of the genocide. The genocide continues with the murders of Hrant Dink, Sevag Balıkçı and Maritsa Küçük and the impunity in such cases.”

Photo: Wayne State University

 

Ara Topouzian will be performing Friday at the Phoenix Theaters Laurel Park Place in Livonia before two showings of “The Promise,” a film set during the last days of the Ottoman Empire when more than one million Armenians were massacred,  reports.

The film showings and concerts by Topouzian are being hosted by the Armenian National Committee of Michigan. Both of the concert/film showings are sold out.

“We were displaced. It was an attempt to drive us to extinction. Music is history to me. It tells a story,” he said. “Anytime I perform or lecture on music, my part is to preserve Armenian culture and educate others on our history. And equally important, I love the music.”

A Farmington Hills resident, Topouzian works full time heading the Troy Chamber of Commerce and formerly worked for the Farmington Chamber of Commerce. Topouzian took up the kanun, which he describes as the grandfather to the piano, after he graduated from high school.

“The kanun dates to the fifth century — it’s still played today. I had always played music since I was a child, but not Armenian or Middle Eastern music,” Topouzian said. “I grew up in a very Armenian home — both my parents are Armenian. They never forced it on me. There was music in the house and records.”

So growing up, Topouzian said he was exposed to traditional Armenian music and would attend events in the Armenian community. “I loved the exotic sound of the music compared to western music,” he said. “In essence, you’re bending notes, sort of in-between the notes typically heard in western music. It’s a different rhythm and sounds.”

Along with preserving the culture of Armenians, Topouzian is hoping the mainstream film will reach more people.

“What they didn’t take was our musical history,” Topouzian said. “This film is very important to the Armenian people, but it is equally important for the non-Armenian community to watch and embrace it. Through this movie, audiences will have a chance to learn more about the Armenian genocide.”

It’s a tragedy that forced Armenians to flee their homes and many ended up in the Detroit area.

“We are all here due to the genocide. I’m in Michigan because of it. Parts of my family escaped. Many Armenians came to Detroit because Henry Ford was offering work at $5 a day,” Topouzian said.

United star Henrikh Mkhitaryan was in a generous mood as he enjoyed a Bank Holiday lunch with pals, according to .

The winger was spotted giving a homeless man a fiver and stopping to pose for a selfie with a fan after lunch at celeb haunt San Carlo.

Onlookers say the Armenian parked his top-of-the-range £70k Mercedes C63 on double yellow lines outside the King Street West Italian restaurant before spending an hour inside.

But it may have been a expensive lunch for the  star after a traffic warden clocked his dodgy parking. And just as a traffic warden was about to slap him with a £60 fine.

An onlooker said: “Because it was Easter Monday there weren’t that many parking wardens about, but one eventually did show up and started taking down the car’s details.

“But then Mkhitaryan came out of the restaurant and the traffic warden stopped what he was doing and just started gawping.

“Mkhitaryan then posed for a selfie with a fan, gave a homeless man a fiver and left. He seemed very relaxed.

The Collective Security Treaty Organization, which is the Moscow-led security alliance of former-Soviet republics, has proved its value in the course of 15 years since its establishment, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday, TASS reports.

“Such organization as the CSTO definitely proved its effectiveness,” Putin said in an interview with Mir 24 television channel.

Contract serviceman Gor Hovhannisyan, born in 1993, was killed as a result of ceasefire violation by the Azerbaijani side at about 2:45 p.m. today, Artsakh Defense Ministry reports.

Investigation into the details of the case is under way.

The Artsakh Defense Ministry said it shares the sorrow of the heavy loss and offers condolences to Hovhannisyan’s family and friends.

has circulated the copy of Ottoman Interior Minister Talaat Pasha’s telegram to Aleppo Governor dated July 15, 1916, as well as the Armenian translation of it.

In the telegram Tallat instructs the Governor to keep all Armenians in the places of exile, to deny them permits allowing to move to other locations. The instruction applies even to Armenians living in Muslim families.

US-based researcher Gevorg Hakobyan has retrieved the document from Ottoman archives, translated and provided it to Akunq.net.

On March 1, 2017, in accordance with the arrangement reached with the authorities of the Republic of Artsakh, the OSCE Mission conducted a planned monitoring of the Line of Contact between the armed forces of Artsakh and Azerbaijan, in the direction of the Askeran region, near the settlement of Shykhlyar.

From the positions of the Defense Army of the Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh Republic), the monitoring was conducted by Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk and his Field Assistants Ghenadie Petrica (Moldova) and Khristo Khristov (Bulgaria).

From the opposite side of the Line of Contact, the monitoring was conducted by Field Assistant to the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Jiri Aberle (Czech Republic), staff member of the Office of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Peter Svedberg (Sweden), and Personal Assistant to the CiO Personal Representative Simon Tiller (Great Britain).

The monitoring passed in accordance with the agreed schedule. No violation of the cease-fire regime was registered. However, the Azerbaijani side did not lead the OSCE mission to its front-line positions.

From the Artsakh side, the monitoring mission was accompanied by representatives of the Republic of Artsakh Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defense.

The four-day war unleashed by Azerbaijan in April 2016 was the was the reflections of Baku’s long-term belligerent policy and propaganda, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan said, speaking at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“It caused a great harm to the  conflict settlementprocess. Azerbaijan’s aggression came to confirm that there is no alternative to the Artsakh people’s struggle to live in safety and freedom on their own land. This is not an opinion, but a reality imposed on us as a result of Azerbaijani policy,” President Sargsyan said.

President Sargsyan blamed Azerbaijan for the failure to implement the agreements reached at Vienna and St. Petersburg summits. “If Azerbaijan is truly interested in changing the status quo, there is one way to do this – recognize the right of the people of Nagorno Karabakh to self-determination,” he said.

The President said Baku apparently uses the Karabakh conflict to solve issues inside the country – to divert attention from pressing social-economic problems and the growing discontent with the gross violations of human rights.

Serzh Sargsyan stressed that “both Armenia and Artsakh stand against use of force and support the peaceful settlement of the conflict through negotiations.” “New attempts of military adventurism on the part of Azerbaijan are fraught with unpredictable consequences for Azerbaijan itself. Armenia, as a guarantor of Artsakh’s security, has said on many occasions that it is ready to give an adequate response to any attempt of use of force,” he noted.

“Despite Azerbaijan’s continuous threats, the people of Artsakh continue to build their future,” the President said.

He emphasized that Artsakh shares equal rights with the democratic world to enjoy all universal Freedoms, President Sargsyan said, adding that “Artsakh is better aware of the cost of living in freedom and has paid for it with the blood of its sons.”

“While Artsakh is taking decisive steps towards a stronger democracy, its neighbor Azerbaijan is taking steps to ensure full dictatorship with power inherited from generation to generation,” President Sargsyan stated.

Baku will blacklist the foreign observers following the Constitutional Referendum in Nagorno Karabakh, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry’s Official Representative Hikmet Hajiyev told RIA Novosti.

The people of Artsakh are voting today on a new draft Constitution, which envisages shift to the presidential form of governance.  280 polling stations have been opened, including one in Yerevan.

More than 100 observers from 30 countries of the world have arrived in Artsakh to follow the referendum.