Photobook Fair talk: dis/placed

Dates

9 October 2021
Time

3.50pm - 4.30pm
Admission

FREE

Ara Oshagan speaking live from L.A. in conversation with Alexa Becker, from publisher Kehrer Verlag in Berlin, about Ara’s new photobook dis/placed. This event will be live streamed online but also available to watch at an in-person screening in the gallery during the Photobook Fair.

Ara Oshagan’s ancestors were exiled by the Armenian Genocide, his parents were displaced across Europe and the Middle East and ended up in Beirut. Born in Beirut, Oshagan and his family were displaced once again by the Lebanese Civil War. Now the photographer returns to Beirut carrying this fragmented history and wades into the spaces of his community and youth. Among the concrete and human geography of a place at once familiar and foreign, Oshagan begins to construct a narrative of transnational and diasporic identity.

Free event, donations welcome.

This hybrid event will be live streamed online but also available to watch at an in-person screening in the gallery. There are a limited number of in-person tickets available – please select this option when registering if you would like to attend the live talk at the gallery.

All appropriate precautions and COVID safety procedures will be followed.

Biographies

Ara Oshagan

Ara Oshagan has exhibited his work worldwide and presented it at the International Center of Photography, New York, TEDx Yerevan, among others. Following Traces of Identity (2005) and Fatherland (2010), dis/placed is the third book of a trilogy of work about identity, homeland and diaspora.

"I am shaped by a history of multi-‐generational dislocation and diasporic identity. A descendant of families who were displaced from Western Armenia by the Armenian Genocide, I was born in Beirut, Lebanon. I grew up in the Armenian community with a French/Armenian/Arabic elementary education. Displaced once again by the Lebanese civil war, my family and Iarrived penniless to the US. I came of age in America. I do not belong to any single country nor language nor nationality. I live in-‐between several languages and cultures, among multiple ways of thinking and ways of life.My identity is transnational and ambiguous: it is a process." Ara Oshagan
Alexa Becker

Alexa Becker is Contributing Editor for photography and art books for Kehrer Verlag, a Germany-based publisher founded in 1995. After earning her Master's in Art History from the University of Heidelberg, she started her career at Kehrer in 2003, where she is responsible for selecting and acquiring new photography-related projects. Becker provides artistic and marketing advice for photographers concerning the content and style of their work at several international portfolio reviews. She enjoys helping photographers and others appreciate the special qualities present in their work, in particular discovering novel, genuine visions of the world. Alexa Becker offers the point of view of a European art book publisher and is familiar with the overall art and photography market. She is also a freelance consultant, advising and coaching photographers independently.