Hrant Dink Foundation, YIC Youth Initiative Centre in Gyumri, Galata Fotoğrafhanesi and Free Press Unlimited are jointly holding the multimedia exhibition “Beyond Waiting… Stories from Turkey-Armenia Border” in Brussels, at the European Parliament upon the joint invitation of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the EP Delegation to the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee and the EP Delegation to the EU-Armenia, EU-Azerbaijan and EU-Georgia Parliamentary Cooperation Committees, according to the website of the Hrant Dink Foundation.
The five multimedia documentaries jointly produced by Aleksey Manukyan, Anıl Çizmecioğlu, Anush Babajanyan, Arif Yaman, Armenuhi Vardanyan, Deniz Pekkıyıcı, Eren Aytuğ, Marianna Vardanyan, Sofia Danielyan and Volkan Doğar will be open for visitors from September 16th to 20th, 2013, at the European Parliament in Brussels.
Sealed in 1993, the Turkey-Armenia border continues to divide people, villages, railway tracks, children’s laughter and memories. “Beyond Waiting” captures the daily lives of people in the border cities Kars and Gyumri as well as the years of interrupted dialogue.
The station workers waiting for years and years for a train that never comes; Gyumri’s Kima who have been waiting for years for a guest from Turkey to come and knock on her door; the children of Bayandur who break the silence of the border with their music; Sofia whose path crosses with the inhabitants of a Kars neighbourhood awaiting demolition due to urban gentrification plans, while she was looking for the traces of her grandfather; a Kurd and an Armenian whose voice try to reach each other as they face their past traumas do all call us to listen, speak and act “beyond waiting”.
The five multimedia documentaries, to be exhibited in Brussels thanks to the support of the Free Press Unlimited, were produced within the framework of the “Multimedia for Dialogue” project supported by the Consulate-General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the British Embassy.
The project aims at creating an enabling environment for the joint productions of young photographers from Turkey and Armenia, to strengthen their voice through new forms of storytelling and to contribute to dialogue between the two neighbouring countries.
