Ani was born in 1965 in Istanbul. Lives and works in Istanbul.
Is it possible to write a definitive book? Can the researchers utilizing
the digital media reach accurate information? How much of the
information available to researchers is correct? Can oral history
substitute for document? When I started researching for this
exhibition these renowned questions stood up against me too.
Once I learned there were a church building and a supposed Armenian
school next to it (today’s Korfmann Library) I wanted to do a research
on the nun-Muslim people who fought and fell in Canakkale whom I
learned about through various sources before. Who were those people?
Once I started the research I realized that many different lists awaited
me on the Internet. I also realized that many names I heard in oral
history studies and noted to a corner of my mind are missing. I came
across over a hundred names in some lists. I wanted to add the names
missing from the lists avoiding “the precision of a historian.”
I build my own list combining the names I found on the Internet and
the names mentioned in the books.
This is not a history research. This is only my desire to inscribe the
presence of people who lived in this country became citizens of
The Republic of Turkey and called non-Muslims and their names as they
were recorded in whatever unit they served...
(Ani Setyan, 2012)
