Ara Oshagan

Vahe Oshagan has authored eight volumes of poetry, six volumes of prose fiction, short stories, plays, and literary commentaries, as well as countless scholarly articles and essays on literary and historical topics. Oshagan is the preeminent poet and man of letters of the Armenian diaspora. His career as a writer was marked by a clear break from the past and the introduction of new literary ideas and forms into the Armenian language. In 1998, the President of the Republic of Armenia awarded Oshagan the Movses Khorenatsi medal for a lifetime of service to Armenian culture and letters-the highest Armenian honor given to a living person. VaheOshagan passed away on June 30, 2000. Ara Oshagan is a photographer whose work revolves around the intersecting themes of identity, community, and memory. His first collection, iwitness, joined portraits of witnesses of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 with their stories of horror, survival, and redemption. Oshagan has also photographed the Armenian diaspora of Los Angeles in a body of work entitled Traces of Identity. His other projects include Juvies, focusing on the history of youth in the California prison system, and a project about the Ethiopian community of Los Angeles. Ara Oshagan's work is in the permanent collection of the Southeast Museum of Photography, Florida; the Downey Museum of Art, California; and the Museum of Modern Art in Armenia.