Scout Tufankjian to Address AIWA Annual Meeting

WINCHESTER, Mass.—Photojournalist Scout Tufankjian, whose new book about the Armenian Diaspora, There is Only the Earth: Images from the Armenian Diaspora Project, has just been released, will be the luncheon speaker at the Annual Meeting of the Armenian International Women’s Association (AIWA) on Sat., June 27.

Although best known for her work documenting Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns, Tufankjian has spent the bulk of her career working in the Middle East, covering the second intifada from Gaza and the Arab Spring in Egypt.

Her book on the 2007-08 Obama campaign, Yes We Can: Barack Obama’s History-Making Presidential Campaign, was a New York Times and Los Angeles Times bestseller. In the summer of 2012, Tufankjian returned to the campaign trail as a photographer for President Obama’s re-election campaign, where she took the famed image of Barack and Michelle Obama hugging, shattering all social media records at the time.

There is Only the Earth: Images from the Armenian Diaspora Project is the culmination of 6 years spent documenting the Armenian communities in more than 20 different countries. Released in April, it was designed as an Armenian Genocide Centennial project to show, as she put it, “that we could celebrate our survival and accomplishments at the same time that we were mourning our losses.” Since its release, Tufankjian has been interviewed about the book on many local and national radio and television stations.

Born and raised in the Greater Boston area, Tufankjian is a graduate of Yale University and lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Also featured on AIWA’s program will be a performance by Laura Zarougian taken from “This Armenian Life,” a one-woman show that she wrote and directed. The show was originally conceived in Laura’s college creative writing class, based on stories passed down from her grandparents, as well as proverbs and Nasreddin Hodja stories. It had its debut in Chicago in February.

AIWA’s Annual Meeting and Luncheon will be held at the Winchester Country Club in Winchester, beginning with coffee at 9:30 a.m., and the business meeting at 10 a.m. Special reports will be presented regarding AIWA programs in Armenia, including the Women’s Entrepreneurship Program at the American University of Armenia and funding for the Women’s Support Center in Yerevan. Scholarship awards to female students in higher educational institutions around the world will be announced. Plans for AIWA’s 25^th anniversary celebration in the fall of 2016 will be discussed.

The public is invited to attend. For more information, contact AIWA by calling (617) 926-0171 or e-mailing info@aiwainternational.org.