DEARBORN, Michigan— heart repairs, Chicago-based artist Kristin Anahit Cass’ exhibition at the University of Michigan-Dearborn’s Stamelos Gallery Center, features more than 100 photographs that raise the question: where would Diaspora Armenians and other Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) communities if the Armenian Genocide never happened? Cass’ images, which position people in both traditional and futuristic environments, construct an imaginary world of inclusiveness through self-determined and alternative narratives. These stories represent ancient indigenous lands and their people – whose ancestors endured the trauma of genocide and displacement – as healed bodies and spaces.
Cass’s work depicts the story of Armenian families who, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, were systematically massacred and deported from their former lands in Armenian Cilicia, and forced to migrate and settle in a number of South West Asia and North Africa (SWANA) lands and communities. Descended from genocide survivors, the artist’s work collectively acknowledges the generational trauma living in the bodies of descending generations, but also sees this generation as the conduit through which heart and body repairs can be actualized.
For example, in one photograph, two women are seated opposite each other drinking coffee, with a backgammon board on the table between them. They seem to be outside a village house, in the shade of a tree – the highlands in the background. Both wear black and white, but a striking royal blue dominates one of the women’s traditional garments. These two women symbolize a hopeful present and future in a place they can no longer claim as their own. At the same time, the scene depicts a synergy between a woman in traditional dress who has remained on this land, and the other, who seems to be imported from today. The indigenous land is spared from war and genocide. One woman stayed and the other came back. They both embrace their culture, merging past, present and future into a new moment captured by the light of this photograph.
In this way, Cass’ work functions collectively as a repair — each photograph, placed side by side, reaffirms the desire to repair the past and draws inspiration from indigenous geography to project a healed global community. People are aligned and in a SWANA futurity. Some images take place in space, on the moon or on mythical peaks. What becomes evident in the work is also the artist’s critique of the exclusion of SWANA communities in science fiction, technology and mainstream media as she forges images that stray from the conventions of Western Europe and towards a range of scenarios and phenomena where cultural traditions are celebrated. through their space and time. Through these interjections, this exhibition is in dialogue with the lived experiences of other indigenous communities around the world, who have faced similar experiences of genocide, colonialism and displacement.
In the world of Cass, peace and harmony dominate. Women and members of the LGBTQ+ community are active contributors. As one of the photographs states, “Our space is destroyed but we are not”. Each photograph acknowledges the lived experience of trauma, but possesses the ability of humans to individually and collectively reframe that experience in their hearts to make room for repairs.
Heart Repairs: Recent Work by Kristin Anahit Cass continues at the University of Michigan-Dearborn’s Stamelos Gallery Center (First Floor, Mardigian Library, UM-Dearborn, 4901 Evergreen Road, Dearborn, Michigan) through June 25. The exhibition was curated by Laura Cotton, curator and manager of the Stamelos Gallery, and Kristin Anahit Cass.
