Diana Markosian Exhibition Opening at Armenian Museum Features Discussion with Actress Angela Sarafyan

Sarafyan said her experience was the opposite of that of Markosian, as both her parents came to the US together with Sarafyan, adding, “And Armenia was my home in Los Angeles. So there was no fragmentation. There was just a continuation.” She added, “There’s this question of Armenian identity and I think I was so lucky because it was never something separate or something that I was seeking. It was always just in the kitchen, in the living room. My grandma would cook…”

Sarafyan grew up in Hollywood from the age of four and recalled, “Every neighbor I had was Armenian. The grocery store, everything. I was not away from Armenia. I came to Armenia and Hollywood and I loved it.”

Reconnection

On the other hand, Markosian said that when she went back to Armenia in her 20s, “I felt like a foreigner coming in. I had remembered my grandparents’ home, of course, on my mother’s side, and always just the warmth towards that.” However, she said she did feel like she belonged there, especially from 2015 or 2016. She was making the current work, and she also spent time with her grandfather, a painter, as both her grandparents were alive.

Markosian explained that after she graduated school she became a photographer, and that became her compass and passport to travel all around the world. When she finally found her father, she and her brother went to Armenia and had two different experiences. When they first went to their father’s home and he did not recognize them, her brother decided he was never going to come back.

Markosian, however, decided to move there and live with her father while she made her images. She said, “But also it was just so important for me to find that home within myself and within him and the country, the culture. I just wanted to make up for the thing that was broken in some small way.”

Over the last ten years, Markosian would go back to visit and, she said, “It’s like my attempt to make up for that lost time, my attempt to really bridge the experiences I didn’t have.” She is still trying to do this, she said, but with the absence of her grandparents there, despite still loving to go to Armenia, she again feels like a stranger there.

Ultimately, she discovered that she could not make up for the tears and sorrow in the past despite all her efforts. She said, “I think what I’ve done now is make a different story with him … And it’s one that doesn’t feel negative. It doesn’t mean grief or joy. It just means that it’s different.”

Sarafyan noted that on the other hand, the first time she went back to Armenia was for work in 2010, to make the movie “Lost and Found in Armenia.” Her father passed away when she was 19 and during her trip, she said she was almost able to relive her memories, which was magical. She went again during the commemoration of the centennial of the Armenian Genocide in 2015, which was a different experience, and the last time was last summer. She said, “I found Armenia to be this beautiful, beautiful, moving new country…It felt like it was reinventing itself, and there was opportunity that I never saw before, so it filled me with hope.”

In fact, she declared, “Every time I’m there, I feel like I see all of my relatives and all the people that I don’t know. I can see my grandmother who passed away. I can see my dad. I can see my sisters and brothers, and I’m so moved.”

Creating One’s Own Narrative

Gasparyan asked whether the two speakers used storytelling respectively in art or acting in order to reconstruct memory or something else, or instead to create an entire thing.

Markosian said, “I try to make sense of the world. I try to make sense of my own life. I think art has been there for me when I needed it. It’s become almost a friend in my life where, when things go bad, I turn to it and it’s there for me.” She was able since she was 20 to use this language and way of understanding the world to confront it instead of running away, through film, photography and writing, and, she said, to express something deeper.

In closing, Markosian said, “I think for me, the most important thing as an artist or as a person has been to not be defined by a story, to not be a victim of a story, to not be defined by my mom’s decisions.” She wanted to have her own story and the courage and compassion to truly get to know her family and friends. That is what she wished the younger generations who look at her project and listen to this discussion would take away from it.

In the question and answer session with the audience that ensued, among other things, Markosian revealed that her first book, Santa Barbara (2020) was about her mother, whose story was more dramatic than her father’s.