NOT A JOY RIDE

An interview with Neery Melkonian
By Marko Stamenković, 23 February 2008

I am aware of the fact that you are neither a genocideGenocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of an ethnic, racial, religious or national group ... scholar nor a traumaPsychological trauma can happen soon after witnessing or being the victim of a traumatic event ... specialist. But your curatorial projects and art-writing have shown a considerable interest in migratory cultural geographies, the diasporic citizen or the transnational artist, and the nuanced effects of displacement to artistic production. Given that you were born and raised in the Middle East and have been living and working in the United States for sometime now, this seems like a natural predisposition. More recently though, you began to explore the historical facts and documentation as they relate to your own imaginary homeland – Armenia. Could you please elaborate on this interest and the way your professional engagement has been intertwined with this phenomenon?

As a third generation diasporan descendant of a genocideGenocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of an ethnic, racial, religious or national group ... survivor, who grew up with plenty of horror stories and sufficient nationalist indoctrination – typical of threatened groups as a defense or survivor mechanism – I've had to put considerable energy to sort things out, to wonder off from my tribe, to separate myths from realities, to salvage love/compassion from the prongs of hatred/blindness/ignorance, to believe in justice and seek truth, sustain hope for a better humanity, to shed traces of victimIn different sciences the term victim has different meanings. The term is most often use in criminology, religion, psychotherapy and New Age context ...-hood and have agency, it's a never ending work and journey!

Fifteen years ago, and after several years of giving cultural space to other marginalized groups, (called official minorities in the US, i.e. African Americans, Hispanics, American Indians, women, homosexuals etc.), I began to articulate a framework to ‘locate’ the work of artists from the Middle East who lived in the West. Definitely both of those interests were related to my own historical background and were done at a time when such groups had little representation in the American cultural scene. My recent return to the difficult task of making sense of my own culture’s artistic production in post-genocideGenocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of an ethnic, racial, religious or national group ... context was something I first attempted in graduate school back in the 1980s. I did not go too far because the methodologies did not exist then, nor was it regarded as a legitimate subject of inquiry since, as an Armenian you existed only in the Medieval Art context, at least according to Western art historical canons. This is what preoccupies me these days, even if temporarily. I want to thread or take a pause from cultural ‘space-less-ness’. Thanks to the multicultural movement, considerable progress has been made in the US in terms of having a more balanced minority representation within institutional spaces. But when it comes to sub-marginal groups like the Armenians, much of the mainstream art world’s radar, for instance, still begins and ends with the renowned abstract expressionist Arshile Gorky. As you might know, he was a genocideGenocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of an ethnic, racial, religious or national group ... survivor himself and despite his relative success in New York’s cosmopolitan art scene of the 30s and 40s, tragically ended his life by hanging. So yes, when it comes to narrating or contextualizing transnational Armenian artistic identity, across time and geography, there is a lot to be done to change such fixed perceptions.

Sure, but could you remind us – what is the Armenian ‘story’ actually about?

The 1915 GenocideGenocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of an ethnic, racial, religious or national group ... of Armenians http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide, which began towards the end/fall of the Ottoman Empire, culminated in the systematic cleansing of an entire minority-ethnic population from their ancestral homeland of 2,000 years (eight provinces in eastern Anatolia) through a number of means, which included: mass killings, starvation, death marches, labor camps, disarming the male population, sweeping arrests/loots of towns/villages, separating the elderly, women and children, forceful conversions of faith especially of young women, taking them as brides/slaves etc. to enable the formation of modern Turkey.

The current number games, as it gets played out in the mainstream international media, echoes the reluctant position of geopolitical power brokers (i.e. the US government as a strategic ally of Turkey and Israel since WWII). So in the last decades the battle has been combating denialAvoiding the awareness of some painful aspect of reality by negating sensory data ..., which follows a particular pattern or logic, with its corresponding ‘official’ rhetoric that involves numbers, and goes something like this:

1. A ) was it a million or million and a half lives that perished?
2. B ) it was war time, we/Turks lost as many lives or suffered as much, they were all unfortunate, natural casualties of war.
3. C ) it's ok to call it massacres or atrocities but not enough to qualify labeling it as ‘GenocideGenocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of an ethnic, racial, religious or national group ...’. Don't use the ‘G’ word … while the truth of the matter is, if you have the material resources, you are occasionally allowed to buy/use the term ‘genocideGenocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of an ethnic, racial, religious or national group ...’ in the public sphere. This has happened to me personally on several curatorial projects!
4. D ) it's been almost a hundred years, why don't you forget about it and move on?
5. E ) look, you finally have an independent Armenia that desperately needs to normalize relations with its neighbors; put an end to the economic blockade, open the borders etc. so count your blessings. Give back Karabagh to Azerbeijan otherwise…
6. F ) there is no sufficient scholarly proof to your claims anyway, so let's form a ‘neutral - unbiased –independent’ commission to investigate such allegations.
7. G ) the nationalist Armenian Diaspora and their lobby groups are to be blamed for pressuring US Congress through the GenocideGenocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of an ethnic, racial, religious or national group ... Resolution # 316 …
8. H ) if the above passes, who knows what might come next? Maybe demands for reparations, return of lost lands, compensation for properties left behind etc. Keep on dreaming Armenians… hence Turkish Penal Code article # 301 to prevent insulting Turkishness, might be too severe, but we are working on reforming it … especially if we want entry into EU …

As a result of the above battle of numbers, in the last four or five decades much of diaspora Armenian resources, attention or investment have been directed towards proving that the genocideGenocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of an ethnic, racial, religious or national group ... actually happened. Some would argue that they have been consumed even obsessed by this burden of proof.

Beside that, what is to be said with regard to the power-game, and especially the media-articulation of the facts, as experienced through these specific historical data?

Up until the late 1930s, plenty of evidence, combined with impressive headlines and graphic imagery, circulated in the international press regarding the atrocities. These also affirm that it was in the US’s interest at the time to play a major role in saving ‘the Starving Armenians’ as the first Christian nation and/or from the ‘hands of the evil Muslim Turks’ etc. They did this through philanthropy and missionary groups who were instrumental in the survival of the remnants of the genocideGenocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of an ethnic, racial, religious or national group ..., i.e. my grandmother through orphanages and rehabilitation programs etc. These groups of course had direct ties with the state department and influenced the Hollywood film industry to make a feature film at the time called Ravished Armenia! http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0009892/ Other western powers (i.e. England and France) were sympathetic too but more indifferent. They kept making promises to help but cared less to deliver and often changed their mind on signed treaties, depending on the geopolitical climate of the day. Anyway, there is plenty of this stuff in archives throughout the world but the resistance or denialAvoiding the awareness of some painful aspect of reality by negating sensory data ... has created, on the one hand (specially among Diaspora Armenians led by transnational institutions/schools/organizationss etc.) a level of distrust and insularity, which manifests into demands for recognition, justice etc. On the other hand (this is more prevalent in Armenia), isolation yet also a dependence on foreign powers to mediate change.

Beyond official rhetoric, paranoia and monolithic perceptions, what has been done towards re-humanizing the victimIn different sciences the term victim has different meanings. The term is most often use in criminology, religion, psychotherapy and New Age context ... and the perpetrator?

There are some Armenians, me among them at times, who feel that we don't need more proof. For those truly interested, there is ample quality/dignified scholarship on the topic out there by non-Armenians, including Turkish and Western academics… How much proof is enough or does a culture need to prove its own death? Also, some of us share a certain ambivalence towards the term genocideGenocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of an ethnic, racial, religious or national group .... We prefer using the word Catastrophe, which was used initially by those who actually experienced it and is the equivalent of the Jewish term ShoahHolocaust is the term generally used to describe the killing of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, as part of a program of deliberate extermination planned and executed by the National Socialist (Nazi) regime in Germany led by Adolf Hitler ... vs., say, holocaustHolocaust is the term generally used to describe the killing of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, as part of a program of deliberate extermination planned and executed by the National Socialist (Nazi) regime in Germany led by Adolf Hitler .... One uses more physical/vocal cords when uttering the word Ca-tas-trophe, which resonates more somehow. In any case, it's warmer/closer in comparison to the more clinical/legal naming of it as ‘genocideGenocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of an ethnic, racial, religious or national group ...’, a term coined in the 1940s to bring to justice Nazi perpetrators. But in the Armenian case it has so far and paradoxically the term has distanced us from exploring the topic and its effects within multiple layers or more nuanced subtexts. Some intellectuals have argued that this has led to the impossibility of mourningMourning, act of bereavement, grief and mourning are terms that apply to the psychological reactions of those who survive a significant loss ..., that since the subsequent generations were not ‘there’ when ‘it’ happened, since we are not witnesses, the continued denialAvoiding the awareness of some painful aspect of reality by negating sensory data ... is repeatedly prolonging an unfulfilled mourningMourning, act of bereavement, grief and mourning are terms that apply to the psychological reactions of those who survive a significant loss ..., a closure of sorts that in turn is necessary to come to terms with the memories, legacies, and the narratives passed on.

Are we talking about mere terminological obstacles here, or…?

Maybe the challenge at least for some of us is not to get stuck in labeling or number games, which could lead to perversions of sorts on both sides. And that the critical work at hand is not in ‘illustrating’ but mediating the blockages, looking into the cracks or slippages that might hold other possibilities without which transcendence becomes difficult, complex and less attainable.

Since among the first group of victimsIn different sciences the term victim has different meanings. The term is most often use in criminology, religion, psychotherapy and New Age context ... were approximately 150 leading Armenian intellectuals, writers etc. who were beheaded in a public square of Istanbul in 1915 – graphic photographs/narratives of which have passed on from generation to generation – overcoming the effects of such an immense loss of intellectual and creative potential is something the Armenian trans-nation is yet to recover from especially in dispersion. This is one of the reasons I find it hard to accept ‘nomadism’ as a strictly positive construct or as a preferred way of existence. Displacement is not a joy ride. In their polycentric pockets of existence Armenian artists/writers etc. have suffered immeasurable losses, both in production and reception, despite considerable creative output. Add to this complications related to multiple diasporic experience because of wars, ideologies etc. of regimes they have lived in since the genocideGenocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of an ethnic, racial, religious or national group .... So how to ‘thread space-less-ness’ at this transnational moment, how to register continuity despite discontinuity, and without eliminating one’s ‘accent’ is in many ways my, humble, work/role. Tying it back to the issues of numbers, when you are not large in numbers then you are not considered an ‘official’ minority of adopted countries or host cultures. This means you are in the margins of margins with little or no representation to speak of… especially if you are not a member of a wealthy trans-nation. You tend to not ‘register’ or often ‘miss’ and not ‘fit’, and consequently find yourself in the cul de sac (bottom of the sack) of dominant narratives, both within and without, including those coming from the so-called avant garde. One option to bypass this predicament of perpetual displacement is to live in disguise, as someone else, as Gorky did. Or, get rid of accents, deny yourself, erase your own memory etc. But if for some reason you refuse to ‘disappear’ then the other option is to mobilize and gain agency.