ASBAREZ: SheLovesCollective Presents ‘My Relic’ Art Installation on Artsakh Ave. Storefronts

GLENDALE—As part of Armenian Genocide Remembrance Month, emergent international collective of established female artivists, SheLovesCollective, has created an interactive art installation called “My Relic.” This installation intends to activate our community to transform their relics of genocide into broadly construed creative objects and outlets for the collective mourning of trauma through transformation. “My Relic” will take place within 3 retail units on Artsakh Ave., located at 117 Artsakh Ave., 123 Artsakh Ave., and 127 Artsakh Ave., from April 11 to 25, and will feature 3 individual installations including:

“A Ritual in Bread Making” (117 N. Artsakh Ave.) will invite Armenian bakers and chefs to use Lavash, the traditional Armenian oven baked bread, to create items that make up a typical room in a home. Lavash activates a cultural and biological reality in many Armenians, as food is one of the most important human memories. Abstract bread is often a symbol for hunger, starvation, or a hunger for change. Additionally, a short documentary film will be either projected in large format wall-to wall/ceiling-to-floor or played on a variety of vintage television screens of varying sizes. The short film will be of a healing ritual performed by collective members and footage from two previous performance art documentaries.
“Relics” (123 N. Artsakh Ave.) will feature 50-yard-long white tapestries suspended from the ceiling that displays digitally printed images of Armenian relics such as ancestral heirlooms, objects that evoke a memory of ancestral struggles, scars and loss, but also, of triumph, survival and photos of a time before. A QR code will allow spectators to scan and learn more about each relic.
“Reclamation” (127 N. Artsakh Ave.) will feature 100’s of shoes placed in piles as the remnants of a war/bombing with a backdrop of Mount Ararat.