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House on Wheelscritics’ forumAlina Mnatsakanian’s search for “home”by Ramela GrigorianAbbamontianLOS ANGELES - How do Armenians,having crossed a number of borders andencountered many homes, construct adiasporic identity? Can the diasporic Armenianlive in one place and still be partof another – a historic homeland, a siteof origin, a prior home? Post-colonialtheorists Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths,and Helen Tiffin, in defining “exile” withregard to diasporic peoples, wonder if“home” is in “the place of birth (nateo),in the displaced cultural community intowhich the person is born, or in the nation-statein which this diasporic communityis located” (Key Concepts in PostcolonialStudies. London and New York:Routledge, 1998, p. 93). These are questionsthat burden many Armenian artistsas well, including Alina Mnatsakanian.Mnatsakanian’s installations havebeen exhibited and her performancepieces have had a run in Los Angelesover the last several years. Her workcontinues to live online, asking questionswe have yet to answer. It engagesthe issues of “home” and “homeland” aswell as the incessant movement acrossborders and the encountering of manycultures. Mnatsakanian’s personal historyinspired many of her pieces: shewas born and raised in Iran (to Russian-Armenian and Iranian-Armenian parents)but left for Paris at the onset of theIranian Revolution in 1979. After pursuingan art education in Paris for severalyears, she settled in Los Angeles in 1983.After 22 years and several sporadic tripsto Armenia, she relocated once more, inSeptember 2005, to Switzerland.Mnatsakanian’s installation, Houseon Wheels (2000), confronts the issue ofconstant movement and hybrid identity.The installation incorporates a woodenstructure, audio recordings, and projectedimages on the wall, all of whichtogether create a multi-media and multisensoryspace of engagement. Hanginginside the house-shaped wooden frameare four large transparencies representinghomes and cultures the artist hasencountered: Iran, France, the UnitedStates, and Armenia. Each home is referencedwith very specific iconography,which includes such things as identificationcards, passport photos, metromaps, visas, and citizenship papers – allof them signifiers of movement, belonging/notbelonging, and the creation of“home.”Mnatsakanian considers her “homeland”Iran as well as Armenia, explaining,“It’s like a kid who has divorcedRamela Grigorian Abbamontian is an assistantprofessor of art history at Pierce College. She is alsoa Ph.D. candidate in art history at ucla. You canreach Abbamontian or any of the other contributorsto Critics’ Forum at comments@criticsforum.org. This and all other articles published in this seriesare available online at criticsforum.org. To signup for a weekly electronic version of new articles,go to criticsforum.org/join. Critics Forum is a groupcreated to discuss issues relating to Armenian artand culture in the diaspora.Alina Mnatsakanian’s personal history inspiredmany of her pieces.parents,” referring to the sense of attachmentone feels to more than oneplace (home) and implying an involuntaryseparation from an initial source oforigin. Even though Mnatsakanian citesher strongest connections to her birthplaceof Iran and to Armenia (noticeablythe most colorful transparencies), shehad created the home structure for Armeniawithout ever having visited thecountry – emphasizing my earlier suggestionthat “homeland” is an imaginedplace for many Armenians. When theimagined place was transformed into areal one during her first visit, in 2001,ATWATER VILLAGE, Calif. - “DefiningPlace,” a group show exploring how artistsdefine their identity in terms of connectionto place, opens at the Center forExperimental Art and Architecture onFriday, December 5. The exhibit will beon display through December 15.“Defining Place” asks its audienceif home is simply a residence ofrefuge and safety or there are multipledefinitions of this term. Whatare the different kinds of connectionsto place, and how are definitionsof home and people’s connectionsto place shifting or changing?“Defining Place” brings togetherartists from across the UnitedStates who view their respectiveenvirons in unique ways.Ara Oshagan’s “Juvies” series exploresthe daily lives of a group ofincarcerated high-risk juvenile offendersin Southern California.Gilda Davidian’s “Portrait Studio”images highlight Los Angeles studiophotographers within their ownstudios and also include interiorimages of these spaces themselves.Also featured are the works ofBenjamin Donaldson, MichaelCappabianca, and Paul Typaldos.Mnatsakanian’s installations engage the issue of “home” and “homeland” as well as the incessantmovement across borders and the encountering of many cultures.Mnatsakanian recalled: “I kind of feltlike I had been there before, like I belongedthere.”Mnatsakanian’s structure is merelythe frame of a house – no walls, no roof,no foundation, no other reinforcements.The skeletal structure, transparent houses,and the fact that it is on wheels oncemore point to the impermanent andmobile nature of the diasporan, whohas changed homes a number of timesand whose identity, even in the present,is still not fixed. Interestingly, R. B.Kitaj, an American-born artist of Jewishdescent living in England, suggestsCurator Tamar Salibian, filmmakerand cultural studies doctoral studentat Claremont University, will introducethe exhibit on opening night.The evening will feature a performanceby Slow Motion Reign’s VigenSayadian.connect:ceaasite.combrudian.com(818) 551-9386a similar experience of immigrant lifeas displacement, quite apart from actualphysical or geographic movement.In First Diasporist Manifesto (1989), heexplains that his identity was “bornfrom the amalgamation of dislocation,rupture, and a hybrid self which exists– and paints – in two or more societies atonce.” Clearly, the sense of a displacedidentity is not exclusive to the Armeniandiaspora – it reflects the larger immigrantexperience.Mnatsakanian’s installation layers“Defining Place” exhibition opens December 5“Baracoa” by Paul Typaldos.Continued on page C7 “Defining Place”Opening: Friday, December 5, 2008, 7:00-10:00 p.m.Center for Experimental Art and Architecture3191 Casitas Ave, Suite 138, Los Angeles,CA 90039Donation: $10 (proceeds benefit Centerfor Experimental Art and Architectureprograms)Exhibit available for viewers by appointmentonly December 5–15.C6 Armenian Reporter Arts & Culture December 6, 2008
historyGladzor U.: A proud moment in Armenian historyby Nyree AbrahamianYEREVAN – If you could go back to onetime and place in Armenian history, onethat you’re really proud of, what would itbe? The heyday of the Urartian Kindgomin the 8th century b.c.e.? Etchmiadzin inthe early 4th century., during the foundingof the Mother See? Yerevan in thelate 1980s, at the height of the Armeniannational movement? I can’t pick just one,but high on my list of moments in ourhistory to revisit is Gladzor University inthe 13th century.True, as a woman, I probably wouldn’thave had the right to study under thegreat masters there, but I highly doubtthat women anywhere in the world hadthe right to higher education in the 13thcentury. The political, religious, and artisticbreakthroughs that emerged fromthis academic institution make it just asimportant as any battleground in thedefense and advancement of the Armeniannation.Armenians have a long and impressivetradition of groundbreaking universitiesthat started in the 5th century(the Golden Age of Armenian literature)when Mesrob Mashtots and his disciplesfounded schools throughout the nationto teach the new alphabet and promotea heightened sense of Armenian spirituality.Modern secular universities did notemerge in Europe until the MiddleAges. While Armenia’s early universitieswere by no means secular, whatreally set them apart as forwardthinkinginstitutions was the fact thatthey had “faculties,” comprised of severalscholars who were organized into“departments” based on their fields ofspecialization. At a time when universitiesin England, France, and Italyconsisted of one person who was saidto be a “master of all knowledge,” Armenianacademic institutions wereorganized in a fashion quite similarto modern universities, with departmentslike astrology, philosophy, theology,and art, taught by specialists ineach field.Despite centuries of foreign domination,universities throughout ArmeniaContinued on page C11 Tanahat Monasteryin Vayots Dzor, wherehistorians believeGladzor Universitywas founded.House on Wheels: Alina Mnatsakanian’s search for “home” Continued from page C6this sense of displacement into her installation.A ten-minute video loop,evoking the notion of home and movementthat are central to the installation,is projected onto the back wall, castingthe structural form of the house itselfon the wall. The video is a layered collageof various scenes with a superimposedaudio component – giving the viewer amulti-sensory experience similar to thedisorientation engendered by displacement.Mnatsakanian’s own voice playsin the background, her words oftenmuddled, disrupting any sense of clarityand denoting, as the artist herselfwrites, “confusion related to the multiculturalexistence.”In the audio portion of the installation,the artist briefly recounts thespecific experience related to each respectivecountry: a childhood in Iran;art school in France; adulthood inAmerica; and an imagined home in Armenia.These narratives are deliveredin the languages of the specific countryand include a corresponding songin the background. Mnatsakanian alsorecites the following quote by the Iranian-bornArmenian-American authorHagop Karapents in all four languages– Armenian, Farsi, French, and English– identifying her many homes: “Everyonegoes from one place to another toget home. Some people who go fromone place to another never get home.Some others get home, but always stayin exile.”The key images projected on the backwall reinforce the notion of constantmovement and the attempt to create ahome. The identification card is the identifyingmarker of newcomers to the UnitedStates. Its rather paradoxical monikerAlina Mnatsakanian’s installation, House on Wheels (2000), confronts the issue of constant movementand hybrid identity.– “Resident Alien” – denotes someonewho lives in the States but does not quiteyet enjoy the full benefits of citizenship,in other words, one who does not quiteyet belong. The next segment shows therepeated movement of a pair of handsputting up a miniature house, its collapse,and its rebuilding – the narrative looprepresenting visually the many homesbuilt and rebuilt by diasporans.In the following segment, people atUnion Station, in downtown Los Angeles,are hurriedly walking from oneplace to another. The final projection isof a set of hands protectively and reverentiallycupping soil. Could this beMnatsakanian’s – or any diasporan’s– attempt to capture a piece of the land,to render it a “homeland?” Or does it expressthe desire to claim a certain landas one’s own, in a paradoxical attemptto halt the movement inherent in thediasporic experience?In the statement describing the installation,Mnatsakanian elaborates on thistemporality, uprootedness, and the endlesssearch for a “home:”... Sense of belonging to a place, ahome or a homeland, is a natural feeling.When one abandons the homeland,the sense of belonging becomesabstract and sometimes unattainable.Duality or plurality is a feeling createdin such circumstances as a result ofvarious cultural influences. It can beenriching, yet differences and contrastsmay also create confusion. Aperson with a multi-cultural upbringingmight feel alienated in a societythat is prominently from a single culturalbackground. One way of facingthis issue is to completely conformto the new culture. Another way is tofind a possible coexistence.Mnatsakanian, it seems, recognizesthe challenges of multiple belongingultimately by embracing her diasporanidentity as multi-dimensional, what wemight call a “transnational” self inhabitingseveral identities at once.House on Wheels has been exhibited atNeuchâtel, Switzerland; California StateUniversity, Los Angeles; and the SamFrancis Gallery (Crossroads School, SantaMonica). You can view Mnatsakanian’sart on her website at alinamn.com. All Rights Reserved: Critics’ Forum, 2008. Exclusiveto the Armenian Reporter.Armenian Reporter Arts & Culture December 6, 2008C7
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