Memory of Trees

In the early 1900s, as the Ottoman Empire collapsed, a fiercely nationalistic movement took power. As with all ideologies, their taking hold meant the termination of what didn't fit its new identity—its Christian Armenian citizens.

Memory of Trees follows the remains and traces of an ambiguous, dark history—the great crime recognized today as genocide by more than a dozen countries. Kathryn Cook traveled across Turkey and Armenia, to Syria, Lebanon, and Israel, sifting through the remains of this legacy and tracking down survivors. Her images emphasize the emotional tonality of the story rather than documenting specific events.

Kathryn Cook (born 1979 in New Mexico) is based in Rome, Italy, and represented by Agence VU’. Her work has appeared in publications including The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, TIME, Newsweek, and Stern.She has received several grants for this work including the Inge Morath Award (2008), The Aftermath Project grant (2008), the Enzo Baldoni award (2008) and the Alexia Foundation grant (2012).

François Cheval is chief curator of the photography museum Musée Nicéphore Niépce, Chalon-sur-Saône, France.

Karin Karakasli , born in Istanbul in 1972, is a poet who writes in Turkish.She is currently a columnist at Agos, the Turkish-Armenian weekly newspaper and Radikal newspaper, and continues to write fiction and poetry.