Mkrtich Tonoyan: Forays in Military Art

Forays in Military Art entails exhibitions by Armenia-based installation artist Mkrtich Tonoyan, whose practice involves activist research in international human rights. It is Station 7 on the larger projects Meet in the Middle: Stations of Migration and Memory Between Art and Film (2014-2017) and the MITM International Symposium (MacKenzie Art Gallery, November 2-5, 2016). MITM is a series of exhibitions on the pressing theme of migration and memory, with a special focus on creating a dialogue between Saskatchewan and Armenia, two relatively isolated geographic areas with shared histories of genocidal trauma. After serving in the Nagorno-Karabakh war, Tonoyan studied at Yerevan’s Academy of Fine Arts and became Director of the Armenian Art Centre of Social Studies and President of the AKOS Cultural NGO, working to advance transnational exchange through the power of the arts. Exhibitions include: Camouflage, in which tactical material designed for concealment in battle is sculpturally transformed into an organic mass, memorializing soldiers’ trauma in the gallery space. Roll Call, a site-specific work by an Armenian brother-in-arms commemorating fallen Canadian soldiers, as Tonoyan reads the names of 15,000 Canadians killed in historical battles, from conflicts in 1885, World War I and II, to Afghanistan and other peacekeeping missions. More information: https://meetinthemiddle.squarespace.com/

More information at: http://www.uregina.ca/events/mkrtich-tonoyan-forays-in-military-art