Performance, Memory, and the Archive: A Conversation with Arsinée Khanjian

Abstract

The notion of performance holds a profoundly polysemic nuance within the field of the humanities and the arts. For the present issue of the Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies, we challenge the traditional significance of perfoming arts by unveiling how artistic practices disclose important avenues for (re)thinking the question of memory and archive as well as Armenianness, cultural and diasporic identity, the female body, and political engagement. To reflect upon these various issues, we sat down with Arsinée Khanjian and shared our experiences of viewing artistic performances as well as our understanding of the significance of performance for Armenian studies.