218 STORIES: Textures of the City we Lost

This one is about the most touching World Refugee Day events, and I am pretty glad I get to write about it.

It starts with a conversation over a bottle of beer with one of the Syrian Armenian acquaintances - Sarkis (by the way, "Sarkis" is also a nickname Anahit (my supervisor) and I used to describe any Syrian Armenian guy with. Inner joke, you won't get it ;)).

We were sitting and talking about the conflict in Syria, his life and education, sharing stories, and he told me about a project he was part of back in Aleppo. It's a street art project, and since free art is kind of prohibited there, a pretty diverse group of Syrians: Muslim or Christian, Americans, Russians, etc, were wondering around Aleppo, marking the textures of the city. Here is an example.

Also, you can watch the video of the event in Aleppo. It is a pretty touchy one! Watch it HERE

The project was successful and they gathered a lot of beautiful textures of the city. Sadly, Aleppo was not safe when they were about the start an exhibition of their works. It was postponed. Here is what Sarkis wrote on Facebook regarding that:

"It was in June and July back in Aleppo, Syria.When first we gathered at Le Pont Art Organization with name of "Art Camping", and headed off to the old part of the ancient city Aleppo, and start texturing every detail we liked.
Unfortunately, the project had to stop be cause of the unsafe situation in the city, and the participants were already gone withing few weeks. However, the Texture project continued again in Aleppo, and they got the chance to show the works in a humble exhibition at the Le Pont's gallery in April. The exhivition it was named "The Textures of the City we lost".

I was very much touched by the name of the exhibition... Texture of the City we Lost, taking into consideration that almost all the textures represent a part of the city which is no longer there. The walls of Aleppo with all the beautiful textures is not there already... It's gone.

I couldn't get it off my head for days, and finally we came up with a brilliant idea of re-creating the project here in Yerevan, since it was World Refugee Day and the the event was sooooo much in the theme of refugees and losing home because of war. You know how we named it? Texture of the City we Found! It was even more touching.

After a looooot of talking, convincing, budget writing, shopping, fighting and making-up, we came up with one of the most unique, one-of-a-kind project that blew up everyone's mind.

We decided to make it look like a flash-mob, where a very diverse group of refugees, expatriates, (of course, Diversity for Change group was there to support!!) foreigners and locals would walk around the city of Yerevan, and mark the textures... the textures that they have FOUND! You see the message over there?

So, we gathered a group of 50 people, divided into three groups and started the adventure. Of course, the participants were wearing WRD t-shirts, which attracted the attention of the passers-by.

Here are some links on this:

http://imyerevan.com/hy/society/view/3349

http://www.wherevent.com/detail/World-Refugee-Day-‘Texture-of-the-City-we-Found-Flash-mob

Enjoy some of the pictures.

In front of the Post Office, Republic Square

My Diversity for Change participants who joined us for the event. Thanks guys!

My cute friends: Lusine and Narine! Love them!

In front of Moscow Cinema.

Sarkis, ladies and gentlemen!

After the flash-mob was completed. Waiting for the rest of the group to join us for the speech of Mr. Dessalegne, the Representative of UNHCR in Armenia