The Armenian Culture Kit
Design, Editorial Design, Print, Research-creation, Visual CommunicationThe Armenian Culture Kit
“The Armenian Culture Kit” (2017) is a time capsule that embeds an assemblage of discursive elements of national identity and a sociomaterial understanding of Armenian cultural histories. The Armenian Culture Kit is a means to document collective cultural memoirs and diverse moments in history by juxtaposing factual narratives with physical objects to instigate prevalent Armenian beliefs, memories and practices.
Inspired from Fluxkits, the kit was designed to be a cultural probe that facilitates cultural discourse and distributes some tools to preserve, sustain and perpetuate Armenian culture.
The wooden box contains a book entitled Hishatakaran and a pastiche of Armenian literature (poems and proverbs), mythology (myth of origin, legends, gods and heroes), history, geography (symbolic places that carry notions of national identity, homeland and lost lands), food, music, dance, opera, ballet and art.
Within the speculative framework of this project, I wasn’t interested in predicting alternative futures, but rather in facilitating a space for cultural discourse that can involve people to “participate actively” in the construction of Armenian cultural identity (Dunne & Raby, 2013). Thus, The Armenian Culture Kit is an open-source collaborative time capsule that embeds an assemblage of discursive elements of national identity and a sociomaterial understanding of Armenian cultural histories. This assortment was curated with multiple purposes in mind. On the one hand, it was to enable diasporic Armenians to revisit their past factually and objectively, and at the same time, familiarize non-Armenians with the little-known history of an ancient people scattered around the world (Bournoutian, 2006).
On the other hand, The Armenian Culture Kit is a means to document collective cultural memoirs and diverse moments in history by juxtaposing factual narratives with physical objects to instigate prevalent Armenian beliefs, memories and practices.
Read more:
The Armenian Culture Kit and Armenian Matters of Concern