CULTURE AND ARTS

The harvest of the Anatolian travels photographer Norair Chahinian has carried out since 2012 have now been brought together in book form under the title ‘The Power of Emptiness’. Emptiness may be powerful in all its forms, however the emptiness of Anatolia has an added layer of confusion to it: If houses, ruins, mosques converted from churches, people and bones are still there, what is this huge emptiness before our eyes? Or perhaps we should turn our gaze to the last words of the text Baron Sarkis Seropyan wrote for this book: “Today, the Silk Road, Ani, monasteries, churches, and even the houses and rooms lie empty, all over, all across the land… I wonder why.”

The Lusadaran Armenian Photography Foundation, founded by Vigen Galstyan and Art Ghazaryan to preserve and advance the Armenian photographic arts tradition, has already taken giant steps in the research, preservation and promotion of the work of Armenian photographers across the world. We spoke with co-founder Vigen Galstyan to find out more about their work.

The Golden Tulip National and International Competitions and the National Documentary Competition, and also the closing ceremony of the 24th Istanbul Film Festival have been cancelled following the blocking of the screening of the documentary ‘Bakur’ yesterday.

The Grammy-award winning band has embarked on its “Wake Up the Souls’ tour of concerts planned for the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide with a concert held at The Forum in Los Angeles on April 6. The tour will end in Yerevan on April 23.

The exhibition titled ‘Spectography: Tracing the Ghosts’ opened at Depo on March 14, and Arménouhie Kévonian’s book ‘Gülizar’s Black Wedding’, published by the Aras Publishing House in Turkish, was also launched during the opening. The exhibition features the photographs and videos of three Swiss artists, Anna Barsaghian, Stefan Kristensen and Uriel Orlow, produced during their travels across Anatolia.

Entrusted to her daughter fifty years after she was abducted, the memoirs of Gülizar have been published in Turkish by the Aras Publishing House with the title ‘Gülizar’s Black Wedding’. Gülizar’s story contains messages for us all…

‘1915’, a US-produced psychological thriller about the Genocide, will be released across the USA on April 22. Co-written and co-directed by Garin Hovannisian and Alec Mouhibian, the film features Simon Abkarian, Angela Sarafyan, Sam Page, Nikolai Kinski and Jim Piddock in its leading roles.

The Syrian singer Lena Chamamyan is one of the most popular names in music in the Middle East today. Chamamyan brought her first album out in 2006, and she mostly sings in Arabic and Armenian, blending traditional folk music with jazz. Beside pain and death, her voice and lyrics convey life and hope.

Celebrated novelist Yaşar Kemal died in Istanbul on Saturday at the age of 92.

We spoke about Turks, Armenians, Turkey and the Diaspora with Arsinée Khanjian, the Canadian actress who is one of the three jury members of the international ‘Love & Change’ competition of the 14th !f International Film Festival.