Dame Gulizar and Other Love Stories by Rebecca Topakian

What does it mean to reclaim a history shrouded in myth and silence? 

This is the question at the heart of Rebecca Topakian’s Dame Gulizar and Other Love Stories, an intimate exploration of her Armenian heritage through the dramatic love story of her great-grandparents, Garabed and Gulizar. The tale of their forbidden love and daring elopement, passed down orally through generations, teeters between reality and fiction. As Topakian delves into her family’s past, she confronts its ambiguities, particularly the question of Gulizar’s consent—was she a willing participant in this act of defiance, or was her agency subsumed by tradition? This duality forms the cornerstone of her artistic investigation.

Topakian transforms this familial mythology into a multifaceted artistic project, blending photography, archival material, and Armenian artifacts. Her work merges the tactile and the ephemeral: photographs printed on stones from Armenian landscapes and archival portraits resonate with themes of displacement and belonging. By grounding her ancestors in the very soil of Armenia, she symbolically reclaims the homeland her family lost through war and migration. The interplay of analog techniques and symbolic materials creates a sensory narrative that bridges past and present, myth and reality.

Her work also transcends family history, delving into universal themes of love, desire, and the fraught interplay between personal agency and cultural norms. Through imagined love stories staged in ambiguous landscapes, she questions the power dynamics inherent in romanticized narratives. Her exploration of desire as a mirror—both for identity and for connection to the “other”—adds a deeply human layer to her inquiry. By inviting viewers to engage with this narrative, she unearths the unspoken elements of her lineage, blending them with contemporary reflections on gender, identity, and belonging.

Can we ever truly know the desires and agency of those who came before us, or do we inevitably fill their silences with our own interpretations?

Topakian’s work challenges us to reconsider how we inherit, retell, and reshape family histories. Her focus on Gulizar’s untold perspective sparks broader questions about how patriarchal traditions influence historical narratives, and whether art can serve as a tool for reclaiming agency across time. By intertwining personal and national mythologies, her project invites viewers to reflect not just on the stories they inherit, but also on how they choose to pass them on.