About Houshamadyan Founders

 

Vahé Tachjian is a historian. Born in Lebanon, he earned his Ph.D. in History and Civilization at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. He is the author of many academic articles and books. Now based in Berlin, he is the project director and chief editor of the Houshamdyan website whose aim is to reconstruct the Ottoman Armenians’ local history and the memory of their lives.

Elke Hartmann is a historian and Ottomanist. She has studied history and Middle Eastern/Islamic Studies at Freie Universitaet Berlin, Germany. Specializing in the Ottoman and Western Armenian history of the 19th and early 20th century, she has done extensive research in the Ottoman State Archives, complementing her use of a variety of Armenian sources. She is the chairman of the Houshamdyan association based in Berlin.

Silvina Der-Meguerditchian, an artist, was born and grew up in Argentina and has lived in Berlin since 1988. In her artistic research she deals with issues related to the burden of national identity, memory, the role of minorities in society and the potential of a space ‘in between’. Her work has a very heterogeneous language (installation, video, sound installation, audio walk, rugs, bi-dimensional image, etc.). It has been displayed internationally in institutions and galleries. She is an initiator of the platform for Armenian artists UnderConstruction, curator of the first “off” Armenian Diaspora representation at the 52nd Venice Biennial and, since 2010, artistic director of Houshamadyan.

Vahé Tachjian is a historian. Born in Lebanon, he earned his Ph.D. in History and Civilization at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. He is the author of many academic articles and books. Now based in Berlin, he is the project director and chief editor of the Houshamdyan website whose aim is to reconstruct the Ottoman Armenians’ local history and the memory of their lives.

 

Elke Hartmann is a histori...

Working with historian Vahe Tachjian, director of the web based project Houshamadyan, a project to reconstruct Ottoman Armenian town and village life, students developed different skills in the field of investigation, reconstructing memory, storytelling and story writing.

They collected oral history interviews, old songs and memory items in relation to Ottoman Armenians from their own homes or from the families of relatives and neighbors. With the help of the workshop leaders they wrote the stories of these objects and of their initial owners, to trace the route already traversed by the items, and to place the stories in historical context. Through these collected materials and the edited texts, they highlighted micro-histories, which appear at first sight to be the stories of the items’ individual owners but, at the end, also constitute elements of a broader collective memory.

Through the workshop, students developed new perspectives on the history of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, learned how to ask the right questions about them, and produced corresponding content modules for the web.

During the second part of the workshop, participating students worked with the artistic director of Houshamadyan, the visual artist Silvina Der-Meguerditchian, to produce visual products for the site. Silvina collaborated with the students to design content for the houshamadyan site and other visual outcomes, and to ensure that the design helps communicate these stories and key message. Working with her, the participants learned how to document visually recollected objects, do restoration of photographs, and produce podcasts and short video pieces.

The final component of the workshop was a public exhibit that featured video projections and glass case installations of objects collected by students depicting the rich history of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. The materials created by students will be published on the Houshamadyan website featuring the collaboration with Tumo.