This work is a reflection on identity, of being born into the remnants of an Armenian refugee community in a small central Massachusetts mill town.

Both sides of my family came to the United States as a result of the pogroms under Sultan Hamid that began in the 1890s and culminated in what Armenians refer to as Tseghasbanutyan, or the Genocide. Between the pogroms of the 1890s and the Genocide, close to two million people were slaughtered. Our families were ripped apart, loved ones were killed, enslaved or simply disappeared. Entire communities were forever disappeared.

My grandparents understood that the trauma they witnessed could be passed down through to their descendants, and like most in the community, tried to stop the wound from festering by not talking about what they saw. It was a presence, this history, throughout my childhood, a presence that manifested itself through absence. This haunting was at the core of who we were and had a profound effect on generations of Armenians and arguably still does today.

The works included here are a series of reflections strung together to explore the absence, abandonment and estrangement I felt as a child but seldom accepted. The photographs focus on the landscapes of the Blackstone River Valley, various mills and, the people that remain.

The photographs are meant to be framed approximately 16x24 in size. Ideally they would be mounted on a partial wall of vernacular photographs facedown facing the wall with some photographs of the unknown people from the community face up, emphasizing the loss of connective tissue to the past.