Ara Oshagan

I am a photographer and installation artist interested in disrupted and marginalized communities and identity. 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 communit... y 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. My work as a visual and installation artist springs from these sources: I am interested in the exploration of the ambiguities of my identity and the crossing of physical, cultural and linguistic boundaries. I live and work among disrupted and marginalized communitiescommunities that have been uprooted, dislocated and relocated and scattered again. Much of my research and work is about the sensibility and structure associated with this way of life. My own familial and personal history is deeply connected to the communities I photograph and engage in my artistic practice. Father Land, with text by author Vahe Oshagan, Published by powerhouse books, NY in November 2010, Project duration: 1999-2007 Ara Oshagan: Disrupted Borders, Seongbuk Cultural Foundation Art Gallery, Seoul, South Korea, May 2018 Juvies/A Poor Imitation of Death, Columbia University School of Social Work, Columbia University, NY, Fall 2012 Father Land, LA Municipal Gallery at Barnsdall Art Park, Los Angeles, Oct 2010 Jan 2011 Ara Oshagan: Juvies, Armory Center for the Arts, Mezzanine Gallery, Pasadena, June August 2010 Community and Identity, Center for Experimental Art and Architecture, Sept-Oct 2008 Traces of Identity, LA Municipal Gallery at Barnsdall Art Park, Los Angeles, Sept-Dec 2004 iwitness, Senate ...Read More