Fragmented Amputations: A Voice for Artsakh

Fragmented Amputations: A Voice for Artsakh Through Art

Support “Fragmented Amputations: A Voice for Artsakh Through Art,” an exhibition by artist Armine Hovhannisyan. The exhibition brings critical awareness to the ongoing violence against the indigenous Armenians of Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh—disputed territories in the South Caucasus—since the start of the 2020 Second Nagorno-Karabakh War (Sept. 27–Nov. 9, 2020). Based on original research conducted in the now lost lands of Artsakh, “Fragmented Amputations” carefully narrates how this violence is a repressive project of the Azerbaijani state intended to erase Armenian culture, history, and identity in the region. As this exhibition-project shows, “amputation”—of bodies, of lands, of culture—is a method through which ethnic cleansing and genocidal politics is executed through the slow violence of the maiming bodies and the cutting off of the population to vital, natural (land) resources.

UPDATE: Armine Hovhannisyan is giving a talk about her exhibition project in Berlin on May 3, 2025 at the GORKI Art Festival as part of the "100 + 10: Armenian Allegories" section. Information can be found at: https://www.gorki.de/en/exhibition-talks. Our goal is to bring the exhibition project to the United States in the coming year. With your help, this will be possible.

The initial version of the exhibition will open on September 15, 2024, at a prestigious contemporary art festival in Leipzig, Germany: 35th Anniversary of the Peaceful Revolution, Revolutionale - Festival for Change, Stiftung Friedliche Revolution, HALLE 14, Centre for Contemporary Art, Leipzig Cotton Mill, Spinnereistr. 7, 04179 Leipzig.

With your help, our goal is to secure the funds to bring this timely project to venues in Europe and North America. Your donations will go towards the cost of materials for the final push to production and installation, thereby reaching a wider audience.

Dr. Armen T. Marsoobian, Professor of Philosophy & Human Rights, Southern Connecticut State University & the University of Connecticut.

A brief context on the war:

The Second Karabakh War was launched by Azerbaijan with Turkey’s military support against the indigenous Armenians in Artsakh during the COVID-19 pandemic in the disputed territories of what is called Nagorno-Karabakh, or, the Republic of Artsakh. This republic was a self-proclaimed democratic state in the South Caucasus populated by Armenians, but internationally unrecognized and viewed as a part of Azerbaijan. After the 44-day resistance in 2020, Azerbaijan, with the help of Turkey, Syrian jihadists, and Russian and Belarus military support, gained control of around 8,500 square kilometers of territory. This included the loss of hundreds of ancient, historical, and cultural Armenian monuments in addition to more than nine fine and craft art museums along with their full collections. Thousands of soldiers, primarily 18–20 year-olds, died, with more becoming disabled. Indeed, the majority of these newly-disabled men have had their limbs amputated. Meanwhile, displaced from their homes, many civilians became refugees. On December 12, 2022, the remaining Armenians in Artsakh were placed under a blockade by Azerbaijan, which led to starvation and illness. Gas and electricity were cut off and patients were deprived of medicine and proper medical care. Families were separated and children deprived of educational opportunities. Despite rulings by the International Court of Justice and calls from the human rights community, the blockade continued. On September 19 and 20, 2023, Azerbaijan violently attacked the remnants of Artsakh, killing and expelling over 100,000 indigenous Armenians. Today over 150,000 Armenians lost their homes and their homeland. Forensic initiatives have shown that Azeri officials and the military are erasing and defacing Armenian cultural traces in the newly-occupied lands. UNESCO has not yet been able to gain access to these monuments. Scholars have highlighted such tactics of erasure and slow violence, noting that they cannot be separated from the genocidal policies against Armenian identity and culture that began in the late Ottoman state in 1915.

A Brief Artist Statement by Armine Hovhannisyan

The “Fragmented Amputations” exhibition works with contemporary 3D technologies to visualize three critical meanings of amputations—land, body, and culture—in order to show the scale of the violence and aggression against indigenous Armenians in Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh by Azerbaijan after the 44-day Second Karabakh War. The war was launched by Azerbaijan, with Turkey’s military support, against the Armenians of Artsakh during the COVID-19 pandemic. This aggression keeps having devastating consequences for Armenians. By using virtual and synthetic 3D methods, media, and my original archival research, the exhibition spans three rooms, amassing elements which each speak to a layer of erasure: 1) the destruction of cultural heritage; 2) identity as disposable bodies, only to be killed; and 3) charting land as if it is only a question of borders and delimitations.

Specifically, the exhibition is based on the artist’s original archival documentation of the cultural heritage of Artsakh taken from 2019–2020. These include: oral histories conducted by the artist with Armenian war doctors, displaced Armenians from Artsakh, and mothers who lost their sons during and after the war. Thus, this project is informed by the artist’s direct and long engagement with Artsakh as an artist and Armenian subject. By juxtaposing research, oral histories, lived experience, methods of visual arts and 3D technologies, this exhibition brings together the destruction of cultural objects and the amputation of human body fragments from the dead and from survivors in order to ask: How do we see the relationship between the violence acted upon the human body, the land, and culture? If Armenian belonging is subjected to cultural appropriation and identity erasure in the region, then what is the role of visual and artistic practice to envision new ways of resistance and survival?

Artist Biography

Armine Hovhannisyan is a multidisciplinary visual and digital artist based in Yerevan, Armenia. She works with various modes of creative production—drawing, interactive installations, video/photography, craft, and 3D technologies. The main method of her practice takes the form of collaborations, either with other artists or engagements with different social and cultural groups. Her projects reflect on the politics of normative images, narratives, and repressive histories by challenging them through artistic subversive gestures to suggest the final work as the interplay between fiction, reality, and the imaginary. Hovhanissyan’s works consider the themes of trauma, cultural heritage, violence, rehabilitation, gender, and contemporary legacies of colonial and political regimes. Selected international exhibitions include: 2020, “Zarafa Unfolding,” SP/N Gallery, Dallas, USA; 2016, “XWhyZ” performance, ACSL Armenia, Germany; 2015, “Apricots from Damascus,” Apexart franchise program, 2013, “Armenia Taking Position: Identity Questioning” exhibition, ACSL, FARE, Milan; 2012, “Urban dreams” residency and exhibition (Art Today Association-CCA and ACSL, Yerevan, Plovdiv, 2010-11, “Soviet Agit Art. Restoration” with Samvel Baghdasaryan, BM SUMA Contemporary Art Center, Istanbul, 2008). In 2010–11, she was invited by the Hrant Dink Foundation to take part in the restoration project of the old water fountain at Havav/Habap, an old Armenian village in present-day Turkey. In 2007, Hovhanissyan was the recipient of the “Young Artist of Armenia” Award. From 2003 to 2017, she worked as an art teacher at the National Center of Aesthetics, Yerevan. She has also authored and realized several pedagogical local and international projects connecting rehabilitation and art.

Expenses to be supported:

1. Exhibition materials, including transportation costs.

2. Translation of texts in 3 languages: English, Armenian, and the language of the hosting country

3. Printing: photos, expositional texts, banner, booklet

4. Graphic designer payment

5. 3D printing materials

6. Special packaging of artworks

7. Construction material for the exhibition space

8. Exhibition catalog production

9. Travel expenses for the artist and production team

10. Artist fee