<p>HSSB 4020</p>
Talk by Sato Maoughalian Along the cobbled streets and golden walls of Jerusalem, brilliantly glazed tiles catch the light and call the eye. These iconic features of the Holy City are Armenian ceramics. Silently, these works of ceramic art represent a riveting story of resilience and survival. In 1919, David Ohannessianfounded the art of Armenian ceramics in Jerusalem, where his work and that of his followers are now celebrated as local treasures. Born in an isolated Anatolian mountain village, Ohannessian mastered a centuries-old art form in Kütahya, witnessed the rise of violent nationalism in the Ottoman Empire, endured arrest and deportation in the Armenian Genocide, founded a new tradition in Palestine, and spent his final years, uprooted once again, in Cairo and Beirut. Ms. Moughalian will detail the lineage of her grandfather David Ohannessian’s ceramic tradition. She will speak about the process of understanding her family’s past, the impetus to excavate and reconstruct her grandfather’s history through archival research, and the importance of preserving the stories of peoples displaced through war and migration. Join Armenian-American researcher Sato Moughalian for a voyage into the birth of Armenian ceramic tradition in Jerusalem.Through her grandfather, David Ohannessian’s, art in churches, houses and the walls of the Old City, take a visual tour from the historic Ottoman ceramics center of Kütahya to his leadership of the “Dome of the RockTiles” workshop in Palestine (1919-1948).