Ancestral Journeys: Reflections on Land and Belonging
Talk: Embracing My Ancestral Home

November 2, Monday
16:00
Venue: Hrant Dink Foundation Anarad Hığutyun Building
Papa Roncalli St. No: 128 Harbiye, Şişli/İstanbul

*The talk will be in English and there will be no simultaneous translation.

To register for the event, please fill out the form.

Some journeys are about discovery, while others are about reunion. For many, certain routes lead us to our roots, even generations later. As Hrant Dink profoundly stated, "Every Armenian is a document," and he always addressed the significance of understanding history through the lived experiences of survivors. Through their descendants, the memories of survivors are revitalized and shared with new generations.

Join us for a unique conversation series that explores themes of discovery, reunion, and ancestral journeys. The "Ancestral Journeys: Reflections on Land and Belonging" series, which we began in June 2025, continues on November 2 with Arlene Avakian's talk at the Anarad Hığutyun Building.

Arlene Avakian learned about the Armenian genocide in 1954 when she was 14 years old and her grandmother Elmas Tutuian told her some of what she experienced in 1915. Elmas chose Arlene to carry this story, charging her to “tell the world.” Avakian ran from that story and everything Armenian for many years, but the story kept intruding itself into her life. In this talk she will explore the complex journey from trying to escape from the knowledge of her family history, to acceptance of it, and eventually to the integration of this history into her identity. In 1992 she published her memoir Lion Woman’s Legacy with Elmas’ story and its impact on her life at its center. Almost two decades after it publication, that book brought her to the Hrant Dink Memorial Workshop on Gender and Ethnicity in the Former Ottoman Lands. That visit to Türkiye and the many she subsequently, took along with the relationships she developed and joint projects she embarked on, especially working on a book of conversations with Ayse Gul Altinay and Fethiye Cetin, changed her life. Most recently, Elmas’ story and its impact on Avakian is the subject of a forthcoming documentary. Avakian will trace the trajectory from 1954 when she realized and was finally able to embrace Türkiye as her ancestral home.

We Welcome Your Stories

This conversation series is part of a broader dialogue about ancestral journeys and the profound connections between past and present. If you are an Armenian living abroad who has undertaken or is planning an ancestral journey, we would be honored to hear your reflections and experiences. Your stories of discovery, reunion, and belonging contribute to the collective memory that Hrant Dink spoke of - each narrative adding depth to our shared understanding of heritage and home.We invite you to share your own journey with us. Please reach out through This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to connect and explore how your story might enrich this ongoing conversation.

Gregory Jundanian 

Professor Emeritus Arlene Voski Avakian is a founder and former Chair of the Department of Women, Gender, Sexuality at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her books include: Lion Woman’s Legacy: An Armenian American Memoir (1992), Turkish translation Aras press, Istanbul, Spring 2020; Through the Kitchen Window: Women Explore the Intimate Meaning of Food and Cooking (1997, 2005); From Betty Crocker to Feminist Food Studies: Critical Perspectives on Women and Food (co-editor), African American Women and the Vote 1837-1965 (1997) (co-editor). She is currently working with Ayşe Gül Altınay and Fethiye Çetin on a book of conversations among them exploring race/ethnicity, gender, and class. An activist for most of her adult life, Avakian has worked with Movement Voter Project, an organization that funds progressive grassroots groups in marginalized communities in the U.S., building progressive community infrastructure and getting out the vote. She is also a founder and the Chair of the Leah Ryan Fund, an organization named for her late daughter that helps sustain and support writers facing individual challenges and systemic oppression so they can keep writing, connecting, creating, and thriving. In addition, she is a Board Member of Enchanted Circle, an Arts Integration Non-Profit that brings the into the schools and the community in predominantly Puerto Rican and Black communities in Western Massachusetts.

Aylin Vartanyan Dilaver

After studying political economy and literature at Barnard College and Columbia University, Aylin Vartanyan Dilaver continued her career teaching critical reading and writing at Boğaziçi University School of Foreign Languages. Since the establishment of the B.Ü. Peace Education Application and Research Center in 2006, she has worked as a trainer, organized seminars and conferences, and participated in curriculum development efforts that blend critical pedagogy with an arts-based perspective. In 2005, she encountered Augusto Boal's Theater of the Oppressed approach. The trainings she received, supported her belief in the crucial role art plays in the context of social transformation. In 2010, she started her doctoral studies in Expressive Arts and Social Change at the European Graduate School in Switzerland and received her CAGS degree. In 2021, she became a member of the Institute of Expressive Arts Istanbul in Istanbul, where she works as an instructor and facilitates workshops. She continues her work as one of the founding members of Parrhesia Collective, a group of Armenian women academics and artists.