Veronika Babayan

artistiek onderzoek - autobiografisch - community - conceptueel - cross-over - dekolonisatie - Diaspora - educatie - geschiedenis - installatie - internationaal - publicatie

Veronika Babayan uses an auto-ethnographic approach in the adaptation of early feminist practices of preservation in relation to the concepts of collective memory, intergenerational trauma and diasporic identity. A large part of her work revolves around fruit leather making - a recipe through which stories of deracination, migration and survival of the Armenian women have been passed on intergenerationally and transnationally. In this light, Babayan is instrumentalising the recipe into a collective political subjectivity, a mnemonic device, and a transmission vessel of oral histories. In doing so, her work depicts the brutal and visceral characteristics of seemingly fragile materials that represent both nurturance and resistance.


Sour Counterfeits

Tentoonstelling / presentatie

  • 29-10-2020 t/m 01-11-2020
  • Locatie: Het HEM / De Dood, Zaandam
  • Sour Counterfeits is a mobile forgery lab, where fruit leather documents are produced. In this multiphase project, Armenian women's generational knowledge of fruit leather making is transformed into a mnemonic device for cultural preservation. “Sour Counterfeits” pulls from a larger collective memory, serving as a vessel through which deracinated testimonials of trans-generational trauma circulate beyond territory, language and citizenship.
  • https://veronikababayan.com/Sour-Counterfeits

Dear Mother: Fluid Mechanism of Belonging

Tentoonstelling / presentatie

  • 29-10-2020 t/m 01-11-2020
  • Locatie: Het HEM / De Dood, Zaandam
  • Taking the form of a passport, this meta-autobiographical memoir, is an internalised investigation of the concept of collective trauma and motherhood. How can we allow future generations to devictimise the transnational identity and to create a new, fluid mechanism of belonging? How does maternal care as a mnemonic device affect a child’s identity formation?
  • https://veronikababayan.com/Dear-Mother-Fluid-Mechanism-of-Belonging

That Those Beings Be Not Being

Tentoonstelling / presentatie

Pastegh - Making Fruit Leather and Undulating Storytelling

Workshop

Mother[hood]

Tentoonstelling / presentatie

  • 29-04-2021 t/m 06-06-2021
  • Locatie: Het Pleinkamer, Amsterdam
  • The work of the mother is historically kept out of the public sphere, but that doesn’t mean that the Mother[hood] is only as large as her house. What a mother makes becomes economy, what a mother teaches becomes knowledge and what a mother touches becomes society.
  • https://veronikababayan.com/Womb-Tomb

Motherland / Մայրենիք

Tentoonstelling / presentatie

  • 18-09-2021 t/m 28-09-2021
  • Locatie: Yerevan Modern Art Museum, Yerevan
  • Motherland in its various interpretations - such as Mother Earth, Mother Goddess, motherhood, Mother Heroine, homeland, patriotism, citizenship and nationality - is the theme of the artistic rethinking and reflections in the joint international project of Veronika Babayan, Olga Ganzha, Tatevik Ghukasyan and masharu.
  • https://veronikababayan.com/Realms-of-PostMemory

Warmly

Tentoonstelling / presentatie

  • 08-02-2023 t/m 09-04-2023
  • Locatie: Huidenclub, Rotterdam
  • ‘Warmly’ is a group exhibition aiming to spotlight the crux between art and craftsmanship, knowledge and know-how, the intuitive and the analytical, material and conceptual. The imaginaries of painting, textile, organic matter, and cooking are brought together as the core of this presentation by three female artists who share the visceral energy to dig deeper into their research process and the political dimension of making: Veronika Babayan, Natacha Mankowski, and Natsuko Uchino.

Fruit Leather Making and Time Travel

Workshop

  • 08-03-2023 t/m 08-03-2023
  • In samenwerking met: Huidenclub, Het Bollepandje
  • Locatie: Het Bollepandje, Rotterdam
  • An evening organised on international Women's Day, during which the women of the community house in Delfshaven came together to exchange generational knowledge on the tradition of fruit leather making, to write letters from the future to the past, and to celebrate together in solidarity through cooking and sharing food together.

Resistance At Boiling Point

Overig

  • 23-07-2023 t/m 23-07-2023
  • In samenwerking met: Eathouse collective, JINA Collective, Diana Al Halabi
  • Locatie: An Other World, Rotterdam
  • On June 23 2023, Eathouse hosted their fourth and final Tongue Twisting Dinner of the current series. For the session they brought together voices from Iran, Lebanon, Armenia and Turkey. Diana Al-Halabi’s research brings in different histories of the region. Veronika Babayan transfers women’s generational knowledge through her artistic practice that deals with antagonistic histories. Whereas JINA Collective is a feminist activist group that emerged from the Woman, Life, Freedom movement.
  • https://www.instagram.com/_eathouse/?hl=en