Istanbul hosts Armenian Genocide memory exhibition

An exhibition by French-Armenian photographer Antoine Agoudjian opened in Istanbul cultural centre ahead of the 96th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

According to The Guardian, it features ninety-six black and white photographs, one for each year since the start of the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman empire, on 24 April 1915.

The exhibition titled Burning Eyes is divided into five parts, corresponding to the five vilayets (provinces) formerly decreed as Armenian by the empire – Van, Erzurum, Bitlis, Diyarbakir and Harput – and are now part of eastern Turkey.

A grandson of Armenian Genocide survivors, the photographer has been investigating those provinces for the last 15 years.

His travels are said to have taken him to all the Armenian communities scattered across the Middle East, but also along the trail leading to deportation and massacre, from the west of Turkey to the Syrian desert of Deir ez-Zor, in search of memories that have been denied and repressed but never wholly effaced.

"Denial is what keeps the genocide topical and photographic truth helps bring things to the surface," he says.

His work, which plays on light and contrasts, draws viewers into the torments of the Armenian soul and its culture. Under a heavy sky the ghosts of genocide victims haunt the villages, ruined churches and petrified communities of Anatolia. Agoudjian tells the story of the Armenian people's deportation, exodus and martyrdom, including the funeral of the journalist Hrant Dink, who was murdered in 2007. Death inhabits each survivor, but a glimmer of hope still remains.

"The process has been gathering speed since the death of Hrant Dink," says the writer Ahmet Insel. "The exhibition fits into this context. We have already had several cultural events in Turkey devoted to the Armenian question," he adds. "Osman Koker organised a very important exhibition drawing on a collection of period postcards which showed quite clearly that the Armenians were here before 1915, then disappeared."

Some time ago the Armenian community's Agos newspaper, founded by Dink, published a series of pictures by Agoudjian. A few months later he travelled to Istanbul to meet Osman Kavala, a business man and one of the driving forces in cultural exchanges between Turkey and Armenia. Together they decided to mount an exhibition at the Depo, an arts centre in Istanbul.

A collection of Agoudjian's photographs, originally published in France (Les Yeux Brûlants, Actes Sud, 2006), has also come out in a bilingual (Turkish and Armenian) version in Turkey, as part of a collection of history books launched by Köker. Exhibiting in Turkey is also the culmination of a personal quest for the photographer. "Many people think it's daft, maybe even thoughtless, but I'm increasingly aware that this story is not just an Armenian concern. It is of interest to anyone who longs for truth," he says.

The events in Istanbul to commemorate the genocide on 24 April, organised by writers and human rights campaigners, confirmed Agoudjian's convictions. "I hope this will open the way for other exiled Armenians who want to work here," he adds. But the topic is still very sensitive in Turkey. Some ultra-nationalist militants tried to barge into the exhibition opening, but were quietly kept at a safe distance by the police.

Burning Eyes will run through early June.