Check Out Ara Oshagan’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ara Oshagan

Hi ARA, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
It’s hard to say where my story actually begins. I was born in Beirut, Lebanon into the Armenian diasporic community there–built up after displacement and genocide in our indigenous land of Western Armenia three generations before. So perhaps my story begins with that original displacement that informs much of my work and identity. But I was myself displaced from Beirut due to war. Displacement upon displacement like so much embedded Russian dolls. I landed in the US at a young age, grew up here, went to university here, my work and family have been here, specifically in LA, for 40 years. So I am American, Armenian, with a French education from an Arab country. I have a diasporic, hybrid and multi-dimensional, multi-lingual identity with a deep and abiding connection to a homeland not seen or have the right of return to for four generations. I also am deeply connected to Los Angeles—its way of life, way of thinking, way of living. I have four children, all born here. But disconnected as well. This is perhaps the diasporic state of mind—here and not here, connection and disconnection, rooted but also adrift. I began my career as a scientist, then was a writer, and now a visual artist and employed as a curator. My art and curatorial work flow together addressing local and global social justice issues.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Never ever a smooth road. Most of my artistic career I have battled invisibility. Certain geographies, communities and narrative are not given priority in our artworld—as is the case with Middle Eastern or rather SWANA (SouthWest Asian and North African), Arab and Armenian communities. Black, Latinx and Native American narratives were similarly marginalized for decades but are finally finding space in our institutions and culture–I am very happy about that! Though I have to add that none of that matters to my artmaking. I make my work because it is important for me to make work, to try to articulate my life and times, the state of being diasporic, my capacity as a witness to various social justice issues. I feel if you are not driven from an internal space then your work is not fully yours. I am only committed to my subjects and my ways of seeing.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am an intersectional artist and curator working in photography, collage, archive, endangered language, film, book-arts and installation art. Vectored by my own personal history, I am a documentarian and as well as conceptual artist. As I wrote above, I am descendant of communities who were deracinated from their indigenous lands by the Armenian Genocide in 1915 and I was displaced myself. My work researches and explores the associated visible/notvisible structures of identity, memory and histories of site/notsite. My lived experience and personal history are deeply connected to my work and I am interested in the exploration of ambiguities of identity and the crossing of physical, cultural and linguistic boundaries. My work entangles past-present-future and imagines new futurities for my own as well as other marginalized and displaced indigenous communities.

Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
I love the space we have in LA, that I can walk out onto my front yard and see the world. As well as LA’s very diverse and non-stop art scene. The fact that I have friends and colleagues here who span the globe is a source of constant inspiration and engagement for me. The downside to LA? Of course, if I did not have to drive so much, I would be happier. Though we live a VERY priveldged life here—hard to find anything to complain about.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.araoshagan.net
• Instagram: @ara.oshagan
• Facebook: araoshagan
• Twitter: araoshagan