Navigate
X
    Emil Lazarian
  • 4 years ago
    • Categories: 2021

CivilNet: Remembering Mariam Shahinyan, Turkey’s first professional female photographer

CIVILNET.AM
07 Nov, 2021 06:11

When writer and researcher Anahit Ghazaryan saw Mariam Shahinyan’s work, it was love at first sight. 

It all started in Istanbul, with a little photo of a girl with long hair taken by Shahinyan. 

An Armenian genocide survivor, Shahinyan  is Turkey’s first female studio photographer. Outside some corners in Turkey, very few know about her work. 

Anahit Ghazaryan spent five years researching and finding original photos by the artist, who died in 1996 after dedicating 50 years of her life to photography. 

Anahit gathered a small collection of the photos taken by the artist and opened a temporary exhibition in Yerevan, titled “Living room of images”. The collection honors Shahinyan’s work. 

Emil Lazarian: “I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.” - WS