Karen Babayan
Cumbria
Karen Babayan explores the themes of identity and exile through multidisciplinary works, including the writing of fiction, photography, painting, print and performance.
I am a storytellor of personal and public histories through images created and re-interpreted and words, written and spoken. Exploring the role of nostalgia, mythmaking and archetypes, my research is drawn from fiction, film, creative writing, popular culture, the general media, anthropology and other artists. History, identity and truth are explored through fiction writing, image-making, performance and documentation.
Packing', is a performance piece about exile; 'Blood Oranges Dipped in Salt', a book of fictionalised family stories explores diasporan Armenian identity from the perspective of my own family through handed down stories and personal experience. A rich archive of family photographs is incorporated into new work through projection and a variety of print media. The work evidences the experience of displacement by revisiting the history that has shaped my family in its physical and psychological migration over time and space. My latest project 'Swallows and Armenians' explores the real Armenian family behind Arthur Ransome’s fictional ‘Swallows' and reveals their contribution to the rich cultural landscape of the Lake District.
Born in Tehran, Iran in 1962, of Armenian-British parentage, I came to the UK in 1978 at the age of 16.
'Blood Oranges Dipped in Salt', is published by the Wild Pansy Press, University of Leeds www.wildpansypress.com
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