The Refugee, Illuminated

The Refugee, Illuminated is a multi-year research, artistic, and archival initiative that breathes new life into the 120-year-old Karagöz puppets of Abkar Knadjian—survivors of exile, war, and generational silence. Digital archive, scholarly collaboration, and exhibition, the project brings together researchers, artists, and cultural institutions across Armenia, Turkey, Syria, Greece, France, and the United States.

These puppets are refugees in their own right, crossing borders, surviving erasure, and carrying ancestral memory through displacement. When illuminated, they invite us into a shared space of contemplation and recognition, reminding us, much like contemplative traditions teach, that light and shadow shape one another.

In 2019, artist Sona Tatoyan discovered 180 Karagöz puppets belonging to her great-great-grandfather, Abkar Knadjian of Urfa, hidden for decades in the attic of her family’s war-torn Aleppo home. These survivor objects, witnesses—hold memory in leather, pigment, gesture, and humor.

The project reframes them not as relics of loss, but as carriers of cultural memory, artistry, and resilience. At its core, The Refugee, Illuminated invites a double witnessing:

• the witnessing of a people’s journey through violence, creativity, continuity, and survival; and
• the witnessing of one’s own inner landscape, where attention transforms shadow into meaning and exile into a deeper sense of belonging.

By bringing humility, presence, and awareness to these puppets and the stories they carry, we honor both their historical truth and the universal human longing for refuge, remembrance, and home.

In November 2025, Hakawati hosted Memory Lab, a three-day research gathering in Yerevan where scholars, artists, and culture-bearers met Abkar’s puppets for the first time. It is the foundation for a long-term scholarly and creative body of work. Through methods spanning archival science, performance anthropology, diaspora studies, and material analysis, the team began the first deep examination of this rare and regionally significant collection. The Memory Lab is held in collaboration with the National Entho-museum, Sartarapat. Over three days, participants:

• studied the original puppets
• identified typologies, motifs, and regional variations
• shared research from Syria, Turkey, Greece, the Caucasus, and the Armenian diaspora
• developed a shared methodology for cataloguing, metadata, and digital preservation
• begun outlining the narrative framework for future exhibitions and publications

Lead Research & Editorial

• Raffi Niziblian (Armenia/Canada)
  Head of Hakawati Armenia, Producer of the project & workshop lead.
• Tigran Amiryan, PhD (Armenia/Germany)
  Research Strategist, CSN Lab – lead editor synthesizing the scholarly output into the 2026 publication.
• Sona Tatoyan (USA/Armenia)
  Creative Director, inheritor of the collection – bridging artistic interpretation, memory work, and performance.

Regional Scholars

• Dr. Hala Qasqas (Syria/UK)
  Barakat Trust Postdoctoral Fellow, Oxford – specialist in Ottoman-era Syrian shadow theatre.
• Dr. Anthoula Chotzakoglou (Greece)
  Art historian, researcher of Karagiozis and Eastern Mediterranean performance culture.
• Dr. Talin Suciyan (Turkey/Germany)
  Historian – mapping Armenian diaspora archives and performance references across the Ottoman and post-Ottoman worlds.
• Dr. Zerrin Yanıkkaya (Turkey)
  Associate Professor at Bodrum Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Performing Arts Theatre historian
• Prof. Tamar Hayrapetyan (Armenia)
  Folklorist, Yerevan State University – specialist in Armenian Gharagyoz traditions.

Archival Specialist

• Tamar Sarkissian (France)
  Expert in photographic documentation and UNESCO metadata systems; leading digitization.

Their work together, across languages, borders, and lived histories, is an act of cultural diplomacy.

The Refugee, Illuminated brings together scholarship, memory work, and artistic imagination to transform a once-silent archive into a living cultural ecosystem.

Following the Memory Lab, scholars will undertake months of research to produce analytic reports, which will be woven into an introductory publication by Tigran Amiryan. The project then blossoms outward:

• Publications starting with a creative Zine;
• Symposiums in Europe and the U.S.;
• Exhibitions featuring Abkar’s puppets;
• Multimedia installations and performances giving voice to Abkar’s characters;
• Collaborations with artists, filmmakers, technologists, and educators.

This is only the beginning. These components are in development.