Within the framework of the receptiON series, on October 11 CSN Lab hosted İren Bıçakçı, architect and archivist of the Hrant Dink Foundation.
The event titled "Bolis. Where do the archives take us?" brought together participants from different communities, cities, and disciplines – artists and researchers, Istanbul Armenians and Yerevan residents – and was dedicated to archives, the politics of memory, and the narratives formed around them. At the center of the discussion was the role of archives as a key to understanding and critically engaging with the past, as well as the methodologies and experiences of working with them.
As part of the event,İren Bıçakçı and Tigran Amiryan, founder of CSN Lab, delivered talks intertwined with the social and cultural memory of the Armenian community in Turkey and its complex past. İren Bıçakçı presented the archiving and digitization processes carried out by the Hrant Dink Foundation, referring to the archives of Istanbul’s educational institutions and discussing the methodology, process, complexities, and challenges of working with them. Sharing her personal experience as well, she emphasized how crucial the creation and preservation of archives are for uncovering community, family, and personal narratives, identities, and memories.
Focusing on Armenian schools in Istanbul, and particularly the Khorenyan School in the Balat district, Tigran Amiryan presented CSN Lab’s ongoing research project “Adress: Balat orphanage” This project, which tells the story of the Khorenyan School and the community narratives woven around it, is grounded in CSN Lab’s interdisciplinary research project “Balat: Living Together,” dedicated to studying the multiethnic coexistence and multicultural life of Istanbul’s Balat district, as well as in the work of the Hrant Dink Foundation’s archival team aimed at digitizing and cataloguing the Khorenyan School archive. In his talk, Tigran Amiryan emphasized the central role of archives in exploring the multilayered past of the Khorenyan School and, through it, in revealing the life of the Armenian community of Balat within a constantly shifting political context.
These projects carried out by the Hrant Dink Foundation and CSN Lab not only uncover and restore the memory and narratives of the Armenian community – often forgotten or deliberately pushed out of official history – but also demonstrate that community archives can become vital tools for preserving identities and creating shared narratives.
The meeting “Bolis: Where do the archives take us?” offered yet another opportunity to reflect on the fundamental issues of the formation and transformation of individual and collective memory. Particularly important for us was the atmosphere created during the event and the dialogue between Armenia-based and Turkey-based communities around a complex past and present, which directly reflects our commitment to building a transparent and inclusive culture of memory.
The receptiON platform is CSN Lab’s ongoing initiative aimed at promoting contemporary cultural narratives through public events. It brings together cultural practitioners, artists, and researchers from Armenia and around the world to share their knowledge and experience through lectures, workshops, film screenings, and many other formats.