Armin Hayrapetian

For thousands of years bodies sacrificed in wars, those escaping from wars, have been washed up the shores. In the current epoch, the images seem more clear yet losing their power and getting more distant. In modern times it appears we have the means to avoid all these wars, yet we still bring them upon our race and this planet. 
This is a durational performance piece involving the burial ritual of all those lives lost. Bodies abstracted in the forms of clays, formed on their farewell wooden plunks, reminding the stretchers where casualties would be carried in war. The cycle starts with one performer fiercely producing the clay bodies on the plunk. The other performer washes these bodies carefully, wrapping them, and carrying them over to their burial site, a stage, representing a shore, where they would be laid next to each other. The poetic emerges from the laborious yet attentive task of treating these bodies in care, in contrast to the violent way they are produced. These repetitions echo the eternal ongoing wars.  
Creator, designer, and performer Armin Hayrapetian. 
In collaboration with Sami Ismat as a performer, Divyamaan Sahoo as the sound designer, and Aram Atamian as the producer. 
New Blood Festival, Links Hall, Chicago (2018).