Searching for Utopia

The exhibition curators invited Tsovinar Kuiumchian, a scholar of contemporary art and creative practices in the global Armenian community, to conduct an interview with Levon Kafafian about their practice. The conversation highlights the intersections of Armenian futurism, world-building, and material culture.

*Tsovinar Kuiumchian: Could we talk about the experiences, the stories and the concepts that inspire the world of Azadistan?*

Levon Kafafian: I think the very first thing that inspired this to come to being was taking part in an immersive three-day workshop called ‘Detroit Sci-fi Generator’ that was led by adrienne maree brown1. It rekindled the fire for sci-fi and fantasy storytelling in me, and made it relevant to envisioning what our actual futures might look like. I went to a comic book store to consume all the sci-fi and fantasy media based around Southwest Asian cultures in particular. The clerk, who was very knowledgeable, said, “I don’t know if I can find any of those things for you”. There was only one text on her mind, but I had already read it and would describe it as ‘orientalist’ and written by a white man2. I asked myself out loud, ‘do I have to write this book?’ And everyone around me said: “yes, you do,” all together, all in unison. Ten voices in the shop said: “You’re the writer now.” That’s what propelled me in this direction.

Slowly but surely, I started to have little pops of inspiration come to me, some of them through the bottom of coffee cups, even when I wasn’t intending for it. A friend who I was reading for found an image of a fire that appeared as a portal in the bottom of her cup. She said: “Well, that’s the title of your book now, Portal Fire.” It’s been an interesting tug between these moments of divination, or flashes of inspiration, and an intuitive making process.

In 2016, I started making fabrics for a clothing line that would later be used for Portal Fire. I was just thinking of what future Armenian costumes could look like. I started weaving, but the end result didn’t feel particularly futuristic or techno-inspired. It felt like a strong call back to Ottoman era fabrics but with a modern sensibility. It wasn’t until 2019 when I got a show at the Arab American Museum that I decided to make a graphic novel and build it out further. I developed the main characters and started pushing the story in a particular direction.

In 2020, the idea of fleshing out the cosmology of that world started to come to me. The show that I did at the Arab American Museum was largely inspired by experiences that I’ve had, filling in the gaps in the relationships between myself and my grandmother. That is why the grandmother character is very much based on my grandmother, and the main character is partially me: partially who I wish I could have been at that young age, and partially just an archetype that exists for me in terms of what experiences and things have brought Azadistan into existence; desires for what the Armenian world could be. Azadistan envisions a future sociopolitical union that would exist in what is now Eastern Turkey. Bringing together the various ethnic groups of that area, any of whom have a claim to those lands, towards a more harmonious coexistence in that space. Many of the reasons why I have 12 clans and 12 spirit beings is because there are so many different peoples who have inhabited that land and are important actors in its history and in its present and future.

I also have had a hard time in the past seeing queerness, or alternative modes of living, represented in the Armenian community. When I started coming up with this idea, I was really starved for that. At the same time, as I’ve grown over the past eight years since this story really began coming together, I’ve learned a lot about how I perceive what queerness is and it has changed a lot for me. The characters are less like ‘punch in the face queer’. They are just living however they need to be living and are operating in modes that work for them. The world of Azadistan still has certain cultural and social norms, but there’s a lot less placed on gender or who one might love, or how one might be in relationship to their beloveds.

I
a s k e d
myself out loud, ‘do
I have to write this book?’
And everyone around me said:
“yes, you do,” all together, all in unison.

*T K: There are many different threads here that I want to follow. So the fact that the Ottoman textiles emerged for you when you were thinking about this futuristic world, more so than this kind of techno-futuristic design, makes me want to ask you about your experience with Armenian and other SWANA textiles and encounters with those objects that perhaps you’ve had in your life, perhaps through your grandmother or other people in your community. What have those encounters with textiles been like?*

L K: I’ve always had an affinity for textiles. I grew up going to my grandmother’s Astoria apartment in New York, and the living room was anchored by this giant crimson rug that had all these floral motifs. As a child I was always crawling around on it. That is the closest you’ll ever be to rugs, I think, and that has had a huge impact. I also always saw my grandmother crocheting. Textile workings were also something that the maternal lineage on my father’s side has always had.

My first real push towards doing any kind of creative work in the fiber field was watching Project Runway. There was always such a freedom to what somebody was making and, of course, there’s the glitz and the glamor of it as well. I started making sketches, but my friends were like, “you shouldn’t be a fashion designer”, so I put that desire away. But then I ended up with a job at a family-run Armenian carpet retailer and cleaning center. In the process of being surrounded by and learning about the methods of creation and care for these stunning rugs, I became familiar with different designs and patterns.

Another reason for why I was inspired by the past and not by a technofuturistic
style is because I kept seeing the same five mass produced designs used in any setting where a “traditional Armenian textile” was needed. I found this disrespectful to the long tradition of the craft. As you know, I see value in futuristic design, but outside of rug weaving, it’s difficult to find commercially produced textiles that honor or reshape the traditional Armenian craft of weaving.

*T K: And so I think this leads me to a two-part question about technology and futurism. For me, one way to think about technology in Armenian futurism comes from the work of Mashinka Firunts Hakopian. In her recent work with Andrew Demirjian and Dahlia El-sayed, they trained AI to read Armenian cultural code through divination, such as the traditional readings of coffee grounds, which are fed into AI as information and knowledge. In her work, and the work of others, the future is seen as bound to technology, and so I’m interested in the fact that Azadistan is ‘post-digital’ and that textiles are the arena for negotiating social relations, just like in the lives of our ancestors. I’m curious about your view of the digital. What is it about man-made textiles, or the ‘the non-digital’, that you think is important in this world building process?*

L K: I’m working on a presentation called “A Tapestry of Possible Futures”. It looks at the connections between weaving and futuring, and in this sense, worldbuilding as a parallel. All of these require you to amass a number of threads and manipulate them into a ‘tapestry’ of complex interactions that create a systemic whole. It looks like one thing when you are farther away from it, but when you get close, there’s a lot of different little things happening. When you’re looking at weaving and world building and futuring, it’s very easy to overlook many things. So I think there’s a lot of processual parallels. In the contemporary era, we have different lexical training on how to read textiles. A lot of information is contained and transmitted in form and image, whereas symbols and materials were more important in the past. I’m trying to move towards a combination of those things. Also, I think people don’t really realize how much one’s clothing has an impact on how they walk through the world. I want to call a little bit more attention to how that works.

*T K: I think it’s really interesting, this idea of training yourself to be in the world in a different way through this textile sensibility.*

L K: I think about how narratives are encoded into textiles. Digital technology has weaving to thank as its predecessor through the creation of the Jacquard loom system and, therefore, binary code. This ties into how script is a similar creature to a woven narrative, because the way in which you read script changes over time. Script shifts in the way that they are shaped, but they also change the way in which they are spoken to fit how language has changed over time. And so doing that with the script that I’m working on is another layer of this encoded technology that doesn’t require the digital to exist.

T K: That’s really interesting. This relationship between narrative and textiles also makes me think about the fact that a future world is being materially created and the graphic novel is being written at the same time. So, speaking to the intuitive methodologies that you use, it’s as if the textiles help create the narrative and actually outline the various elements and structure of the world. Would you comment on that?

I n
t h e
contemporary
era, we have different
lexical training on how to
read textiles. A lot of information is
contained and transmitted in form and
image, whereas symbols and materials
were more important in the past.
I’m trying to move towards a
c o m b i n a t i o n
of those
things .

L K: When I started making scarf collections in 2020, I wanted to bring my production work and fine art works together to show how they were influencing each other. The production work was where I could experiment and try different technical avenues and also smaller ideas before the larger art piece would be made. And vice versa, I could work out the concepts in the larger pieces and then transfer them to the smaller ones. Bringing together and codifying that system was important in being able to communicate to the public that these two parts of my practice are not different, that they feed into each other. There is such a quantity of information stored within my small format pieces, such as the scarves and shawls, that provide facets to the costumes and installation works.

So the ideation process provides the tiniest motes of information, and the intuitive making builds those things out into realities. Those woven entities are much greater than the sum of their parts, and have a lot more to communicate about what that information really means. So part of my process with the scarves is, once they’re off the loom and they’ve been washed and pressed, I sit with them. I try to decode what information is contained within, and I write a piece of its narrative, and that text ends up on my website and helps flesh out more information about the particular character or facet of that world or story that I’ve been trying to get at.

*T K: Collections appear to be key in your process, because the world seems to emerge out of those connections in the collection, right? This seems important in the context of dispossession and loss, and the fact many Armenians may have a family heirloom, if anything at all, so to have collections as these kinds of open sources of information and ideas is very generative.*

L K: The collections essentially function as archives of that information as well, because I sell the pieces, that’s part of my livelihood. The scarves go out into the world, and they find homes, but the information is retained in an archival format on that website, and so it remains possible to access it, even though someone has the physical object, the image and the narrative that has been pulled out of it stays. And, I mean, essentially, that’s the job of the photograph, right? These are essentially photographs with text written on the back, which call to, like, just the long history of the sort of fragmented histories that we hold on to of our ancestors.

*T K: I wonder about the form of these scarves and the patterns and the specific kind of design decisions that you make, would you say they are inspired by some traditional designs? How do you find your design for the objects that you sell?*

L K: I generally work on four shaft looms, which means I have a very limited field of possible sequence combinations. The four shaft weaving tradition is prevalent all over the world, but has been heavily codified in Europe and the West, so I have access to all of these drafts of fabrics that have been made and patterns that have been produced. I think my job in making these collections and making the design for each piece is to translate an essence. I may look at archival fabrics, I may look at costumes, I may look at architecture, I may look at any number of things that pull me into the Armenian realm of essence.

I use a process called loom controlled weaving, where you allow the sequence of pedaling to produce a repeated pattern. So you’re relying on color, on material, on repetition, on the dimensions of the yarn, and of course, the structure of that weaving pattern. Whereas a lot of the Armenian weaving traditions that we have access to are hand manipulated techniques, which is a very different form of control. I’ve had people who have seen my work and ask, why isn’t your work more Armenian? Why aren’t you copying the patterns of the past? Well, somebody’s working on that already and I have a different mission to accomplish. Also, I don’t use traditional types of tools because I can only be so prolific in my making if I am allowing the loom to control the pattern. If I am allowing my hands to control every bit of patterning, then I have a whole different set of design considerations, and it’s going to take much longer. But again, the important thing is the derivation of essence through the tools I have access to. When that piece is finished, what does it feel like? Does it feel like it has the living essence of this thing?

*T K: And also I was wondering, a lot of your work contains elements of spirits and magic, is that something that exists in the Armenian cosmology, or is that also inspired by the indigenous cosmology where you live in the U.S?*

L K: Yeah, I think it’s come from a couple of different places. There is absolutely a tradition of spirits in Armenian cosmology, though the Christian tradition has done a lot to move focus away from those things. A lot of what we have left is information about the major deities and of the religion that predates Christianity in Armenia. Interestingly, the rural villages are where these traditions continue to exist. A specific example of a spirit that is still interacted with to this day, and has a number of small shrines across the Armenian Highlands, is named Toukh Manoug. Manoug is a trickster spirit who is revered for feminine health and in particular, fertility by people from various cultural and religious backgrounds. That’s something that I find really beautiful about the spirits of the land. It doesn’t matter what your religion is, spirits exist across cultures. This is another thing that’s important to me. The people of Azadistan aren’t necessarily of the same religion, but they work with the same spirits of the land because they’re there. So, by necessity, it’s an intercultural thing.

Is
Azadistan
a dystopia? Is it a
utopia? It’s just a topia. It’s
just a complex place where things
happen, like our own lives and societies.

*T K: And I love that they all interact with spirits, because the spirits are there. That’s not about their worldview. It’s not about their beliefs, it’s not about their cosmologies. It’s just what the place is, right?*

L K: I’ve got another quote for you. Is Azadistan a dystopia? Is it a utopia? It’s just a topia. It’s just a complex place where things happen, like our own lives and societies.

*T K: Could you tell me more about where your family is from?*

L K: So on my mother’s side, Palu, and on my dad’s side, Aintab. Both are fairly central but pretty far from each other. But interestingly Aintab and Marash are essentially Sister Cities and both have such strong traditions of embroidery. That’s something that has been retained by my paternal grandmother and her mother and now I retain that collection.

T K: Are there some family heirlooms that were preserved?

L K: I have things that my grandmother made while she was living in Palestine and Lebanon, such as handmade home decor. Her livelihood was made through the making of embellished textiles, whether that be embroidery or Armenian needlework, lace or beadwork. She had such a breadth of needlework that she did, and I’m very lucky to have the things she didn’t sell.

*T K: And that is so rooted in the culture: creating your entire livelihood, right? It’s so beautiful to have that in your family collection and it also carries those regional traces, the culture of the regions that were rich in the embroidery tradition, and so that brings me back to something you said about filling the gaps between you and your grandmother and this other dimension of Armenian or regional spirituality. Could you tell me more about your practice as a way to fill that gap?*

L K: So the character I mentioned is based on my maternal grandmother. My paternal grandmother has not yet entered the story, except for in the ways that her threads are already wrapped up in everything. My maternal grandmother passed when I was 18 or 19, and because of my sex it wasn’t expected of me to learn certain things from my grandmother, or from my mother for that matter. It took a lot of pestering my mother for her to show me a number of things. By the time I really got to do that, she was already very tired from her cancer, so I only had a limited window in which to learn from my mother, but not from her mother. She had already passed. By the time I breached that cultural divide I didn’t have the opportunity to have deep conversations with my grandmother about her life, her experiences. What I know of it I learnt secondhand through my older sister or my aunts. She also never fully processed her traumatic experiences, so there were times in the retelling of these stories that she would just stop and be done for the day. Her full story really has never been told, and that has parallels with my father’s parents and even my parents. There’s so much about all their stories that I don’t know. I’m not sure whether it’s because I haven’t asked the right questions, or whether it’s because they don’t want to share those things.

There’s always a fragmentation to these histories, and by necessity, there is an intuitive fleshing out of these stories that feels safer to do in the realm of fiction. I can try and imagine what it might have been like for her to live through certain things or to move through life. I try to develop a kind of texture for what she might have been like in certain scenarios, or try to relate to her as a full adult and not as a developing child. So, these characters inhabit a closer relationship than I had with my grandmother. An aspect of each of my family is present in those characters, and I get to see a version of that relationship play out.

*T K: There’s so much love and attention in using speculative writing as a tool to spotlight our elderly and relate to them, and continue the relating process even after their passing. That’s very beautiful. Staying on this question of spirituality and magic and its importance in the world of Azadistan, I recently came across an interesting story about the discovery of the subterranean world underneath the ancient city of Ani, which you reference in the installation. According to local legend, the site was discovered, not by archeologists, not by professional historians, but by the Armenian mystic George Gurdjieff, who was wandering around and came across some wobbly stone, discovering dwellings, caves and this whole structure underneath. It is like an actual symbol of the spiritual, like leading with spirituality, rather than science. Though I say this cautiously, because I don’t want to dichotomize spirituality and science.*

L K: I think those who engage in archeology are doing so because they’re looking for something, they’re looking with intention, with an agenda. But the spiritualist does not seek: they amble, they wander, they move through the world in a different way. And so there’s a different sort of attunement to what’s around you. The archeologist is looking for clues. The spiritualist philosopher, whatever you want to call Gurdjieff the mystic, is just attuned to what’s different and what’s tugging on the strings of their mind.

*T K: In Armenian “azad” means “freedom”, which for us Armenian speakers is self-explanatory. But I’d like to hear more about what you think Armenian freedom looks like. You’ve already touched a little upon the different sets of rules and norms that shape society. I’d like to hear more about Armenian freedom in relation to the diversity of the global Armenian community and the diverse challenges and histories that inform our contemporary communities and our future communities, as well as our visions for the future. I’m curious about the political posture that you project into this world and the political posture that this world creates for Armenians with all our diverse considerations and visions.*

L K: I purposefully built the scaffolding for Azadistan as a place where no one group is a monolith, and there is equity amongst the 12 groups. However, over time, especially over centuries, power shifts and dynamics emerge and groups often deem that they have the right to rise to power. So in this space, the dragon clan has assumed that mantle and posits themselves at the top of the hierarchy and the spider clan at the bottom. The spider clan are the weavers and the orphans. They are the foundation for the society operating and yet they cannot hold status. The dragon clan runs the system: the ‘topia’. It’s important that there’s things that are not idyllic about how this society works, which is true within certain kinds of liberation. Liberation is not an event. Liberation is a process, and sometimes that process moves in the other direction as well, because people’s lives are short and history is long. For me, what it means to be liberated in an Armenian context and in a modern context has three major nodes. One has to do with the freedom to resist assimilation. The second is the freedom to express one’s Armenianness in a way that is best for each person. And the third is to have access to the land, which has meaning for us.

*T K: And how would you say the emerging Armenian futurism relates to other futurisms, such as indigenous futurism and Arab futurism. I also recently came across the concept of Gulf futurism. I was interested to hear what you think in terms of how Armenian futurism is related to these other futurisms and how it is distinct?*

There is a difference between
the idea that we will thrive in
the future, as opposed
to simply “we’ll
still be
he r e ” .

L K: I think it’s an interesting thing to think about. Because Armenian Futurism is still emerging as a concept, there isn’t a lot of canon to it in the way Afrofuturism has a huge body of media exploring it, and there are so many different iterations of it. Armenians are just a smaller community, and by necessity also have had a narrow view of the future as a thing to prepare for to avoid calamity and gain wealth. Those are like the two major nodes: how do we procreate and gain wealth and then on the other hand avoid future disasters? I think Armenian futurism could be a way to look beyond that, how do we envision a future that isn’t predicated on one of those two nodes? How is it becoming more complex than that?

Armenian Futurism is impacted a lot by the other futurisms, because there’s just so much writing elsewhere that says “we can and will exist in the future”. This sort of assertion is empowering to a group that has not had that same kind of assertiveness. There is a difference between the idea that we will thrive in the future, as opposed to simply “we’ll still be here”.

There’s this quote from William Saroyan that says ‘we will make an Armenia wherever there are two of us’. My response to that is, okay, that’s great, but what does that Armenia look like? Is it going to be the Armenia of the past? Is it going to be your idealized, non-existent place? What form does that quote, ‘new country’, a new nation exist in? I think there’s also a lot to be learned from the way that Armenian futurism right now relates to other futurisms. It relates to Arab futurism. It relates to indigenous futurism. It relates to Afrofuturism. These futurisms are driven by the necessity of the lived experiences of the people who have been displaced from their own lands. That’s the context of Armenian futurism.

Levon Kafafian is a Detroit-based weaver working the narrative threads of costume, artifact, ritual and text into stories about possible worlds and potential futures. They infuse their stories and cloth with future ancestral practice, hybridity and magic. Kafafian holds a BFA in Fiber from the College for Creative Studies and a BA in Anthropology from Wayne State University. They have exhibited their work at Stamps Gallery, University of Michigan, MI, and the Arab American National Museum, MI. Kafafian is the recipient of numerous grants, including the Alex and Marie Manoogian Museum Grant (2021), the Creative Armenia Spark Grant (2021), the Red Bull Arts Microgrant (2020), the Rauschenberg Foundation SEED Grant (2016), and the Knight Art Challenge Award (2016). They have participated in the International Studio and Curatorial Program Residency (2023) and the Arab American National Museum Residency (2019). In 2022, Kafafian co-led a public educational weaving program in partnership with Trapholt Museum for Moderne Kunst, Denmark, and regularly lectures and teaches workshops across the U.S.

Tsovinar Kuiumchian is a doctoral candidate at St Peter’s College, University of Oxford. Combining visual, material and museum anthropology with postcolonial studies and trauma theory, her research focuses on contemporary art and creative practices in the global Armenian community. She conducts her multi-sited ethnography online and offline in the US, Europe, Turkey and Armenia. Part of the Armenian diaspora, she was born and raised in Ukraine.