Abstract

Canada is home to many ethnic communities, some displaced from their homelands by political conflicts, genocide, and war. Within these diasporic communities, there is a need to collect and preserve whatever evidence remains as a way of holding onto the past, its memories and traditions, and to express the greater loss. My thesis investigates a small corpus of family photographs, taken prior to and after the Armenian Genocide (1915-1923), which have been passed on through generations. My interest lies in determining the meaning of these images in relation to a history of trauma in the family.
Considering the history of displacement and the subsequent creation of multiple homes, this thesis explores family photographs that have travelled with families to different places that these Armenian families have temporarily called "home." In that sense, I regard the physical function of the photographs as instruments to transmit memory, as well as their contributions to the assertion of cultural identity. Through their portrayed subjects, these images serve as visual support for three distinct functions: remembering people from the past; recalling places once called ‘home’; and transmitting cultural heritage and traditions. �