Illustrated Talk: ‘Images of Armenians in Turkey’ (Watertown, Mass.)

MAY 19, 2011 * TALK: ‘IMAGES OF ARMENIANS IN TURKEY’. The Friends of Hrant Dink, Project SAVE Armenian Photograph Archives, the Armenian Library and Museum of America (ALMA), and the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) present an illustrated talk by Osman Koker titled “Images of Armenians in Turkey 100 Years Ago.” Begins at 7:30 p.m. in ALMA’s Contemporary Art Gallery (3rd floor), 65 Main St. in Watertown, Mass. A reception will follow the program. Koker first came to international attention in 2005when he organized the unprecedented exhibition “Sireli Yeghpayrs (My Dear Brother)” in Istanbul. Eventually seen by thousands of people, it presented photographs of Armenian life in pre-genocide Ottoman Turkey, drawn from a large collection of postcards owned by the collector Orlando Calumeno. In the five years since then, the exhibition has also been mounted in Paris, Munich, Koln, Frankfurt, Yerevan, and London. Koker originally intended to write a book about Armenian life in the Ottoman Empire, but with the discovery of a postcard collection the scope of the project changed. Following the exhibition he published the massive and beautifully produced volume 100 Yıl Önce Türkiye’de Ermeniler, subsequently published in English as Armenians in Turkey 100 Years Ago, featuring hundreds of images showing where and how Armenians in the Ottoman Empire lived. Koker is editor of the books Souvenir of Liberty: Postcards and Medals from the Collection of Orlando Carlo Calumeno (2008), Bir Zamanlar Izmir (Once Upon a Time in Izmir) (2009), and Greek Painters of Istanbul (2010), and curator of the exhibitions “Once Upon a Time in Sivas” on the Armenians of Sivas (2008), “Souvenir of Liberty” on the 1908 Revolution (2008), “The Blacks of Turkey” (2009), “Once Upon a Time in Izmit” on the multicultural past of Izmir (2009), and “Jamanak: 100 Year-Old Armenian Newspaper in Istanbul” (2010), among others. This will be his first public presentation on the East Coast. Admission is free; donations are welcome. A reception will follow the program. For more information, contact NAASR at (617) 489-1610 or hq@naasr.org; Project SAVE at archives@projectsave.org; or ALMA at info@almainc.org.