In this webinar, the Promise Armenian Institute marks the launch of a new digital exhibit at the Armenian Image Archive, which explores Kurkdjian’s stereoscopic images of Ani in 1881, taken over a period of five months after he was a photographer for the Russian Army. Dr. Joseph Malikian, curator of this new exhibit, will tell the story of Kurkdjian’s photographic expedition to Ani, and the opposition he encountered from the Russian authorities.
The Armenian contribution to Ottoman photography is supposedly well known, with histories documenting the famous studios of the imperial capital, Ottoman Armenian-run establishments that produced Orientalist visions for tourists and images of modernity for a domestic elite.
Claude Mutafian’s most recent book, Jérusalem et les Arméniens: Jusqu’à la conquête ottomane (1516), presents the relations between Armenia and Jerusalem in their historical and artistic context with an abundance of maps, genealogical charts, and images.
The presentation provided an overview of the collections and a demonstration on how to use the Visual History Archive by Manuk Avedikyan, former program officer (Armenian Genocide collections) at USC Shoah Foundation.
Dr. Roy Knocke sheds light on Nansen humanitarian merits during the interwar period, especially on his commitment for the Armenians, a people to whom he admiringly dedicated one of his last books Gjennem Armenia in 1927 (translated as Armenia and the Near East in 1928).