by
Michelle Andonian
As a photojournalist, Michelle Andonian has captured many compelling images over the decades.
But her photo collection from Armenia and Turkey for her new book, "This Picture I Gift," is her most personal. It commemorates the 100-year anniversary of the Armenian genocide and traces, through words and photographs, the footsteps of her grandmother back home.
That ancestor, Sarah Andonian, survived the genocide which began in 1915, during World War I. About 1.5 million people perished at the hands of the Ottoman Empire, which is now Turkey. In 1922, she came to the U.S. and settled in southwest Detroit. She passed away in 1988, but not before sharing stories of the homeland.
Over many decades, Turkey has refused to acknowledge responsibility for the genocide, despite pressures from many fronts on the world stage. Andonian says she's long thought about that dark chapter in history.
“I have been trying to find a way to tell the Armenian story for the last 25 years," Andonian explains, sitting in her photography studio near downtown Detroit. "After my grandmother died and after the earthquake (1988) there, I went to Armenia, and that trip has kept me going back again and again for the last 25 years."
"So in last three years I’ve really made a concentrated effort to publish this book and get a body of work out in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide."
Sunday Service, St Hripsime, Etchmiadzin, Armenia (Photo: Michelle Andonian)
"I felt this book was a way to bring Turkey and Armenia together, to tell the story of genocide, to tell the story of my grandmother, who is a survivor of the genocide, and just put it out there for what it is," says Andonian, a former photographer for the Detroit News.
On Friday, the Center Galleries at the College For Creative Studies, 301 Frederick St. in Detroit, will host a book signing from 6 p.m.-8 p.m., and launch an exhibition, which includes photographs Andonian took of children and Armenian churches from Turkey and Armenia in recent times. The exhibition will run through Oct. 24.
Also, in October, she'll put on performances to commemorate the genocide, "Hope Dies Last,' a collaborate effort that combines live music and visuals. The show will premiere at the Detroit Institute of Arts on Oct. 18, with a second showing on Oct. 29 at the Macomb Center. She's producing it in collaboration with Alexandra Du Bois, a music composer, and the Detroit Chamber Winds.
Kurdish children stand in historic Armenian graveyard in Turkey.
The book includes photographs from Armenia and Turkey over the past three years, plus a photo of her grandmother in 1987 in southwest Detroit. One of the photos (displayed above) shows Kurdish children standing in a historic Armenian graveyard in Turkey.
The forward in the book is written by her cousin, native Detroiter Robert Ourlian, a former Detroit News reporter who now works as a national security editor for the Wall Street Journal in Washington. Ourlian has always taken a keen interest in Armenia and the genocide.
Andonian writes in the introduction of the book:
It was 1988, and my father’s mother, Sarah, had died a few weeks before. I was with my Aunt Rosie, helping her go through what was left behind of my grandmother’s life.
On the floor behind the dresser was a frame with a photograph of Sarah as a young girl, beside her Auntie Miriam and her auntie’s husband, Soukias. The hand-colored image was taken in a studio in Istanbul. The three were Armenian survivors of the first
genocide of the 20th century.
Sarah Andonian in her backyard. Southwest Detroit, 1987 (Photo: Michelle Andonian)Aunt Rosie was never one to give things away; I could assume that if I asked her for the photograph, she would say no. So all I said was, “If you ever want to give this away, I would love to have it,” and pushed it back behind the dresser. A few moments later—for reasons that, to this day, still mystify me—I pulled the photo back out and turned over the large, simple wooden frame.
I looked at the yellowed paper on the back of the photograph, and in pencil was written:
Grandma said I could have this for my birthday present—Michelle—.
She had signed it. I had signed it—above the word, witness. This was a legal document in my eyes—which, at that point, were filled with tears.
“It’s mine,” I said to my aunt. And she had no choice but to hand it over to me. This photograph taught me in an instant the power of the still image to record and remember what otherwise would be lost.
It was the original seed for my life as a photographer. It is my talisman. Honestly, I do not remember the actual transaction of having my grandmother sign over this precious family portrait to me, nor do I know why I reached back and pulled it out and turned it over that day
.
What I did remember was the recording of her story from the day I sat down with her in her kitchen with a tape recorder and asked her, what happened? What did she remember?After she died, I was afraid to listen to the tape. I didn’t feel strong enough then to hear her voice again. So my cousin Robert Ourlian listened. We had talked for years of working together on a book that captured our grandmother’s story.
Recently, I found a postcard; on the front is a print of the same photograph that was taken in Istanbul, mailed by Auntie Miriam to a relative in Detroit before they sailed to America in 1922. Written on the back was, “This picture I gift.”
From that first photograph, to these, marks a journey of 100 years. It is my grandmother’s journey, and mine, and ours together—and also the journey of so many others, here and halfway around the world. I feel closer to her past, now, better about our future, and connected like never before."
