Treasures

The works in the series “Treasures” use as point of departure a booklet that the artist’s great-grandmother Hripsime Tobdjian wrote in 1944 in Argentina as a legacy for the Tobdjian family. The book is written in Ottoman Turkish with Armenian letters. The 130 pages of 340 folk medicine recipes impart ancient knowledge belonging to the Ottoman Armenians from Ayntab. Inspiring herself from these recipes, the artist has created an installation using the showcases
of the Mekhitarist Monastery of San Lazzaro to contain facsimiles of old medieval herbalbooks, illustrations, digital images, actual ingredients, chemical formulas and herbs. The unbounded pages of her edition specially done for the exhibition are included in the installation.