Armenian Joy “KEF” (a feeling, a state of elated bliss, a celebration of life) is an archival collection of film photographs sourced from a constellation of diaspora Armenians family albums. At this moment, the project exists as a leather bound archival family photography album and an archival website - ArmenianJoy.com.

Too often, Armenians are portrayed as two-dimensional survivors in tragic, sorrowing ways. This project shows the more luminous, life-giving parts of who we are and pushes back against the morose narratives of Armenians as victims. We are resilient, and we know how to enjoy life. We aim to unite the diaspora as one family, provoke generative relationships, and serve as an act of resistance against the ongoing genocide and erasure of our ancestral lands and history. Our culture is carried in the mundane magic of everyday life that has been preserved by our loving families of elder generations, who endured ongoing lineages of trauma and injustice with the hopes of ensuring their descendants can thrive. They deserve to be recognized and celebrated for their paramount fortitude. Joy is defiance. The ancestors who chose to rejoice in merriment in the face of despair, are the true heroes and historians of our kin. In these ways, our hope is that we inspire and connect with other diasporic, migrant communities who may resonate with this generative framework.

Our intention is to build on the project's collaborative process and spirit by creating an actual home, specifically a balcony, kitchen, and living room - through fully immersive, tactile, multi-sensory installation inspired by and sourced through the textures and home-lives of the artists involved, and the archival album. Visitors will be invited into our communal, life-sustaining ways that persist until today. Visitors will be encouraged to interact with the installations and quite literally make themselves at home. Playing backgammon, eating sunflower seeds, listening to records, looking through family albums. In general, we will be playing with both organic and fabricated, hyper-realistic materials as part of the details and textures of the installations, further bringing these spaces to life. We imagine the potential of organizing events and offerings within the space as well.

Our traditional Armenian "balcon" (balcony) exhibits renditions of classic Armenian food preservation techniques, cultural objects, and textiles that evoke the ancient handiwork of Armenians - still utilized as powerful tools for storytelling and cultural preservation.

Our kitchen, the heart of every Armenian home. We will install tablecloths and create tabletop ware and coffee cups. For the walls, we imagine playing with the stereotypes of diasporan homes - maps of our nations and paintings of our beloved cultural symbols. Lastly, the interactive feature of this kitchen will be an interactive coffee-cup divination installation.

Our living room will have several rugs with a record player, with a collection of music from the Armenian Records Archive, and a television set where we will play archival videos we have collected through the Armenian Joy project. On the walls of our living room, we will feature rugs and photographs from the archive.