1915 Portfolio:

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Virtual Exhibition Description

Ani Jermakian is an Artist, Public Elementary School Art Educator, 2020 Graduate of UMass Amherst receiving a Bachelor’s Degree in Art Education and Minor in Art History, and current 3rd year Graduate Student- pursuing a Masters of Art Education.

The 1915 Portfolio is an archive of 2D, 3D and digital work that tells the story of the Armenian Genocide through the eyes of a great granddaughter of survivors.

The series of work started in high school and has been in progress since 2015. Through almost a decade of focusing on the historic and present struggles of the Armenian people, many striking parallels have surfaced between the 1915 systematic massacre of 1.5 million people and 2023's ethnic cleansing of Artsakh, as well as several events in between.

Although history has repeated itself for over a century in the persecution of the Armenian people, resulting in significant decrease of land, many people are not aware of these atrocities. Educating on this topic has become part of Jermakian’s life’s purpose.

This exhibition is dedicated to her ancestors.

Tears of War and Genocide.
Mixed Media
A self portrait collage of maps from the Middle East and Eastern Europe, crying bodies of water. Although Armenians suffered an overwhelming majority of the losses, Assyrians (Christian) and Greeks (Orthodox) were also targeted, suffered and lost lives.

Survivors: A New Beginning
Lithography Print

This print using linoleum plates features pictures of my paternal grandparents, Sally and Armen Jermakian, and maternal great grandparents, Juhar Khevont DerMargosian, on their wedding days. It also uses parts of my great uncle Avak’s memoir and his handwriting in the copy given to my parents when newly married.
Click here to read my family story.

Never Forget.
Oil on Canvas

Never Forget tells the story from a genocide survivor’s perspective. Living can feel like being trapped in traumatic memories.

Treasures
Watercolor
Treasures tell the story from an object’s perspective. Objects such as my great grandmother’s cross from Jerusalem, old photographs of ancestors, my great uncle’s memoir, a pomegranate (fruit of Armenia), and the beloved Mount Ararat: a series of two peaks on which Noah’s Arc is known to have landed. When borders were redrawn after the genocide, Armenia lost her. Although she is over the border, Armenians still view her from afar in utmost pride. She has become the symbol of Armenia.

Unhealed Wound

Graphite

Unhealed Wound tells the story from a descendant’s perspective with generational trauma.

“The book Nervous by Jen Soriano, is an essay collection about how we carry history in our nerves. Through essays that blend personal stories, history, and science, Soriano shows how the long shadow of transgenerational trauma can be healed at a population scale, both from the inside out and the outside in.”

Writers’ Digest

Soriano writes on her website about Nervous:

“This book started as a personal journey of trying to understand why my body held so much pain and sadness.

It became an epic ride through Philippine history, personal history, the silenced history of American colonization, and exciting developments in the social neuroscience of trauma.

The result is a memoir in 14 essays that shows how our nervous systems carry ancestral lessons from the past, and how our nervous systems also carry the key to transforming society toward a trauma-wise future.

I offer Nervous as a reminder that we are not alone. As a testament to the power of facing history and flowing toward embodied connection. As a love letter to bodies survived, and a vision of freedom through interdependence.”

In Search of a Brighter Future.

Graphite and Collage: Canvas, wallpaper, mulberry leaf paper, cardboard, crafts made by children of St Vartan Armenian Summer Camp, cyanotypes of plants found at the Ararat Center in Grenville, NY

This woman is dressed in a traditional Armenian headpiece which usually involves a string of silver coins across the forehead. Silver jewelry is a valued part of female traditional attire. She looks out the window in hope for her culture, land and people to live on for generations.

Traditional Armenian Necklace and Head Piece
Hot Glue

Home.
Model of St. Mark Armenian Church in Springfield, MA

Strong Roots

Pen and ink

Strong Roots tells the story from the perspective of the alphabet, the cross, and the string. Armenia has its own language, alphabet and currency.

The first known mention of the Persian client state of Armena or Armenia is recorded in a c. 520 BCE inscription of Persian King Darius I.

Ancient Armenia, located in the south Caucasus area of Eurasia, was settled in the Neolithic era but its first recorded state proper was the Kingdom of Urartu.

The Orontid Dynasty succeeded the Kingdom of Urartu in ancient Armenia and ruled from the 6th to 3rd century BCE.

By the mid-4th century BCE, the two divided regions under Persian control had been politically merged, their populations had mixed, and the language had become one: Armenian.

The Urartians then officially became the Armenians in the 6th century BCE.

Armenians are also said to originate from the “Aramean Kingdom” or the “Land of Aram” (popular Armenian boy’s name), which is depicted on the first map of the world, created on a clay tablet in the 6th century BCE and now in the British Museum.

The region can also be referred to as “Lavant” which comes up in most Armenian Diaspora genealogy today.

Armenia was the first nation to adopt Christianity as its official religion in 301 AD, which has made faith an integral part of Armenian identity. Armenian crosses differ from others because of their immense detail such as swirls and extended corners as if the edges of the cross never end. There are endless designs that make up sacred Khachkars (cross stones) all over Armenia.

Many of these were destroyed either years ago or during the loss of Artsakh where there is unfortunately no control of who will claim them as their own.

World History Encyclopedia, Ancient Armenia
Britannica, Urartu: Ancient Country, Eurasia
The British Museum, The Map of The World

Blind Eye

Charcoal

Blind Eye tells the story from the perspective of the rest of the world as they are watching the genocide occur while under the distraction of WWI.

“The international community was fully aware of the genocide as it was unfolding. Several European countries and the United States had active consular missions throughout the Ottoman Empire providing a detailed account of events during the Armenian Genocide. In addition, Christian missionary organizations and charities were also active in the area at the time. It is through these missions that newspapers of the period were able to get regular updates on the events in Turkey.”

- University of Minnesota Holocaust and Genocide Studies

“Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”- Adolf Hitler, 1939

Gilded Family Tree

Pen and ink, fabric, canvas, crafts made by children of St Vartan Armenian Summer Camp, cyanotypes of plants found at the Ararat Center in Grenville, NY

Gilded Family Tree tells the story from the perspective of Armenians who now have Canonized Saints of the Armenian Church in their family tree. In 2015, martyrs of the genocide who died for their faith were officially canonized as Saints in the Centennial or 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, commemorated in Washington DC.