Il faut que les braises de Constantinople s’envolent jusqu’en Europe.

2020 - in progress
With the support of La Fondation des Artistes and Centre National des Arts Plastiques.

(Work in progress)

My grandfather Haig arrived in France in the 20s and died without telling the story of his life in Ottoman times, in Kayseri then Constantinople. Before he died, he gave a novel to his children, Un poignard dans ce jardin by Vahé Katcha, in which he slipped a note telling them how his family survived the genocide, and how a particular passage of the book reminded him of this moment. Giving this book was to him a way to tell his experience, but also to share his vision of Constantinople.

Following the thread of genealogical and historic research, I wander in Istanbul and Talas, Anatolia, looking for my family house and village, and portraying Armenians of Turkey today, drawing links between past and present. Showing the continuation from the genocide under the Young Turks to modern turkish republic established by Atatürk, the project aims to show the consequences of a state denial of genocide: an “elephant in the room” on the scale of a society. The genocide denial is one of the founding stone of a national myth, along with the silence around other massacres and oppressions, that created a distorted reality about national identity. What are the consequences of silence? How to photograph what have been destroyed, razed and hidden? What is left is a few people who still have the courage to talk despite the threats and the danger, and a bizarre and uncomfortable atmosphere in everyday life, where a dark veil seperates us from reality, in every little detail.

Dikran is a young istanbulite who learnt late in life that their father was armenian when, by chance, they saw his ID mentioning his religion, christian, and birth name, Hapyan. They had to keep this information secret for a long time, under their family’s pressure who didn’t want anyone to know, and whose attitude towards history is denialism. Today, Dikran explores their identity, including learning the truth about the genocide history, learning the armenian language, and has to confronts their family’s reluctance towards discovering their history.

Ottoman dagger from early XX° century, in an antic shop in Istanbul. This dagger, like others, could have been used to slit armenians’ throats, massacred under the reign of Sultan Abdul Hamid II or the government of the Young Turks. In Turkey, Armenians are still referred as the « remnants of the swords”, meaning they are what is left of the killings.

Ruins of armenians and greeks homes in the city of my ancesters, Talas, Kayseri, in Anatolia. Talas was a merchant city on the silk road inhabited mainly by Armenians and Greeks until the beginning of XX° century. The region was very much affected by the massacres and deportations and the only armenians left were harassed to leave the city. Today, Sarkis is the only Armenian left in Talas.

A view on the mountains from Talas, district of Kayseri, Anatolia. My grand father probably saw the same view, once.

Sarkis is known as the last Armenian of Talas. In the 1960s, when local turks harrassed him to make him leave the city, it is said that he would shoot at them and would have gone to prison. He then came back to live in his property in Talas, where he lives with a lot of security devices.

The grave of my great grand parents Gulizar and Garabed, their son Harutyun, and others, in Bakirköy, Istanbul. As family history is lost, I had to investigate to find it, as I didn’t even know if they died in Istanbul. After researching newspaper archives and finding the obituary of Harutyun, I could find in which church the ceremony took place and where he was burried.

Nationalist tag on the ruins of an armenian house, Talas, Kayseri district, Anatolia.

In Talas old market, the doors still keep the traces of writings in armenian and ottoman turkish.

Meltem is a Turkish woman of Talas who took interest in my story. She said that, if I could find proof of my ancestor's house belonging to our family, I could reclaim property.

Tag of the MHP, racist and ultra nationalist party, on the ruins of an armenian home in Talas, Kayseri district, Anatolia.

Garo Paylan is a turkish MP of armenien descent from the HDP party, a democratic party advocacing for democracy, rights of kurdish people and minorities, recognition of the armenian genocide and protecting minority heritage in Turkey. He has been facing many threats including death threats, and a plot to assassinate him was recently uncovered. Government refuses to protect him and regularly tries to take down the parlementary immunity MPs beneficiate from.

In autumn, when it’s pomegranate picking season, the tradition is to break the first pomegranate on the floor. The fruit is also a national armenian symbol.

Nowadays the museum of Islamic and Turkish Arts, Ibrahim Pasha palace used to be a prison. It was where the armenian intellectuals of Istanbul were taken when, arrested on the 24th of April 1915, they were imprisoned, tortured, and eventually killed or deported. My great-grand-father, Hadji Garabed Kevork Topakian, would have been one of them, if only a acquaintance didn’t hide him and his family for a few weeks in exchange of money. On the palace square, old trees have been used from old times to hang the ones sentenced to death.

Some people say the cats own Istanbul, but that the true kings of the city are the seagulls. Always eating meat and garbage, they are a metaphor of the city itself, which lives on the deads.

On Söğütlüçeşme street in Kadiköy are the headquarters of the MHP, an openly racist and ultra nationalist party. Their flag measuring several meters is hanged over the street.

Norayr Olgar, an Armenian of Istanbul, is one of the founders of Nor Zartonk, an organization that was originally created to protect Camp Armen. Camp Armen was an armenian oprhanage built by the orphans themselves. In 1974, when many christian properties were taken by the state, Camp Armen was also taken and meant to be destroyed. Nor Zartonk protested its destruction and managed, after many battles with other movements, to protect Camp Armen.

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rebecca.topakian@gmail.com ︎