Living Memory: A Conversation with Hrair Sarkissian 

In April2026, Syrian-Armenian artist Hrair Sarkissian sat down with curator Odessa Warren to speak about his exhibition Stolen Past at Ibraaz London and more. In Stolen Past, Sarkissian employs an adapted lithophane printing technique to create 3D renderings of mobile phone images of looted artefacts from the Raqqa Museum in Northern Syria. In this wide-ranging conversation, Sarkissian reflects on his long-term engagement with photography as an expanded practice and how he makes histories of violence and erasure that have been suppressed from view present. In addition to Stolen Past, Warren and Sarkissian discuss a range of past and ongoing works – including Execution Squares, Marks of Oblivion, My Father & I, and Sweet and Sour – which, in different ways, endeavour to document personal and collective memories that are on the brink of disappearing.