Voices Unheard: Stories of Identity and Language

Join the Center for Armenian Arts for an evening of documentary and experimental short films that straddle the layered and overlapping spaces between image, identity and language. The five filmmaker/artists—Carla Kekejian, Mariam Meliksetyan, Ara Oshagan, Gazelle Samizay and Anahid Yahjian—tackle diverse themes from multiple perspectives as they meditate on what is a name, return to diasporic language, walk in spaces of incarceration, consider memory on indigenous land and reflect on a hidden language. All works are interconnected and retain a deep-lying coherence as the filmmakers/artists look to the future to imagine new ways of being and thinking.

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with the filmmakers/artists.

Carla Kekejian – Harsneren, 16 mins, 2019

Mariam Meliksetyan – Say My Name, 21 mins, 2024

Ara Oshagan – but for the happenstance of history II, 4 mins, 2020

Gazelle Samizay -- My Shadow is a Word Writing Itself Across Time, 6 mins, 2017

Anahid Yahjian – Hishé, 5 mins, 2021

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Dr. Carla Kekejian is a licensed speech-language pathologist and founder of SoCal Speech-Language Therapy, a private practice dedicated to supporting pediatric speech and language development. She earned her Ph.D. and M.S. in Speech-Language Pathology from the University of Utah and her M.A. in Education with a focus on Human Development and Psychology from UCLA. Dr. Kekejian is a faculty member at both CSUN and CSULB, where she instructs a variety of graduate and undergraduate courses in speech-language pathology.

Mariam Meliksetyan is an Armenian-American actress and filmmaker based in Los Angeles. She has been professionally trained at the prestigious UCLA School of Theater, Film & Television, Drama Centre London at Central Saint Martins, and Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Having worked as an actress in many independent films, she longed to tell stories from behind the camera as well. Fueled by a lifelong love for cinema and a fascination with documenting the world around her from a young age, she set out to make her directorial debut with the short experimental documentary “Say My Name” which she also produced.

Ara Oshagan is a diasporic multi-disciplinary artist and curator exploring dispossession, identity, and decolonization. Working in photography, collage, installation, and film, he has published four books and exhibited globally, including in Los Angeles, New York, Armenia, and South Korea. His work has been featured in NPR, LA Times, and Hyperallergic. Oshagan is an Artist-in-Residence at 18th Street Art Center and curator at Glendale’s ReflectSpace Gallery.

Gazelle Samizay, born in Kabul and raised in rural Washington, explores culture, nationality, and gender through her bicultural identity. Her photography and mixed media work has been exhibited globally and is in major museum collections. A published writer and vice president of the Afghan American Artists and Writers Association, she has received numerous awards. She holds an MFA from the University of Arizona and is the gallery director at UC Berkeley’s Worth Ryder Art Gallery.

Anahid Yahjian is a Los Angeles-based independent writer, director and producer of experimental, documentary and narrative cinema. Her work is driven by questioning and pursuit: of history, of power, of memory, of liminality, of the surreal and the sublime. Her commitment to telling true stories was shaped by an early love for visual storytelling that was formalized in college and took flight during her coming of age in Armenia. When not creating her own work, she directs commercials, branded content and music videos.

Thursday, February 27, 2025 from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM