Role: Author

Ara Oshagan is a photographer whose work revolves around the intersecting themes of identity, community, and memory. His first collection, iwitness, joined portraits of witnesses of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 with their stories of horror, survival, and redemption. Oshagan has also photographed the Armenian diaspora of Los Angeles in a body of work entitled Traces of Identity. His other projects include Juvies, focusing on the history of youth in the California prison system, and a project about the Ethiopian community of Los Angeles. Ara Oshagan’s work is in the permanent collection of the Southeast Museum of Photography, Florida; the Downey Museum of Art, California; and the Museum of Modern Art in Armenia.

Ara Papian was a ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Armenia to Canada. \

Historian specializing in the late Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey. He was a founding director of the Gomidas Institute, and has edited and written critical introductions to several of the institute’s publications. Now director of the Taderon Press, he is developing the Sterndale Classics imprint. \

ARA ZADA is a chef, recipe developer, and television personality from Los Angeles.