“Ara Oshagan: How the Future May Hold” documents communities displaced from their homeland in Armenia to locations such as East Hollywood. (photo courtesy of LAPL)

The Los Angeles Public Library presents the exhibition “Ara Oshagan: How the Future May Hold” now on view through Jan. 11 in the Annenberg Gallery at the Central Library, 630 W. Fifth St. in Downtown Los Angeles.

The exhibition entangles past, present and future while imagining a tomorrow when the idea of a displaced people returning to indigenous lands is both a dream and a possibility. The bilingual (English and Armenian) exhibition begins with photographic work that reflects Oshagan’s sense of displaced diasporic identity through the community life and spaces of the Armenian community in Los Angeles. In a new series, Oshagan further considers his diasporic journeys and the right of return by sourcing medieval Armenian talismanic scrolls and adding photographic elements.

A large-scale display of portraits and testimonies of communities forcibly displaced from their homeland of Nagorno Karabagh/Artsakh continues the theme of diaspora. Return is also at the core of another new series of works where Oshagan considers what might happen if the displaced Armenian community of Nagorno Karabagh/Artsakh returns to their indigenous homeland in the year 2125. One hundred years after their exile, the great grandchildren of Artsakh’s displaced communities are able to see their rugged native land for the first time.

“With our newest exhibition ‘Ara Oshagan: How the Future May Hold,’ Los Angeles Public Library will once again shine a spotlight on one of our city’s diverse communities,” City Librarian John F. Szabo said. “[It] will open a discussion about the history of the Armenian diaspora, examining what it means to a people to be displaced from their homeland.”

A descendant of families who were displaced from western Armenia by the Armenian Genocide, Oshagan was born in Beirut, Lebanon and grew up in an Armenian community. Displaced again by the Lebanese civil war, he and his family fled to the United States.

“I do not belong to any single country nor language nor nationality. I live in between several languages and cultures, among multiple ways of thinking and ways of life. My identity is transnational and ambiguous – it is a process,” Oshagan said.

The exhibition includes a collaboration with author Micheline Aharonian Marcom, who has published eight books including a trilogy of novels about the Armenian Genocide and its aftermath in the 20th century.

For information, visit lapl.org.