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  • Alma's New Director Seeks New Ways To Connect Visitors To Cultural H

    ALMA'S NEW DIRECTOR SEEKS NEW WAYS TO CONNECT VISITORS TO CULTURAL HERITAGE
    By Gabriella Gage

    Mirror-Spectator Staff

    WATERTOWN - After several years of collaboration, Dr. Susan Pattie
    recently joined the Armenian Library and Museum of America (ALMA) as
    its new director. When she found out she would be relocating to the
    Boston area from London, working with ALMA seemed like the perfect
    choice for Pattie.

    As the new director, Pattie hopes to build upon ALMA's history of
    community outreach, saying, "What interested me most is outreach and
    making the heritage come alive, and also making it relevant to the
    contemporary world. ALMA does an amazing job of preserving cultural
    treasures and bringing people in to show them how to connect to their
    history and heritage."

    Pattie, a Washington DC native, received her undergraduate degree from
    Hope College and worked as an artist/craftsperson before earning her
    doctorate in anthropology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

    She served as the senior research fellow at University College London
    and later was a founding director of the Armenian Institute in London.

    Her academic research has focused on the Armenian Diaspora and
    preservation of Armenian culture.

    She is also the author of Faith in History: Armenians Rebuilding
    Community. Pattie worked on several education-based projects during
    her time as director of the Armenian Institute. She said, "We did it
    because there wasn't another organization there using mixed media
    arts to bring history to a contemporary context. We wanted to have
    an exchange of ideas - a forum for presenting ideas among each other."

    In 201l, Pattie and Armenian Institute colleagues published a
    children's educational guidebook (available at ALMA) titled, Who Are
    the Armenian People? "The project grew out of a conversation with a
    parent in London who wanted to talk to children about Armenian history,
    but wasn't sure how to go about it," Pattie noted.

    The book also tackles the difficult subject of explaining the Genocide
    to children, Pattie said. "We discuss the history of the Armenian
    people. We also need to explain what genocide is so that children will
    understand. That section took a long time to write. It talks about
    survivors as well as those Turkish people who helped some survivors
    escape - how the diaspora of today began. What is important is that
    they [children] understand that not only were lives lost but a way
    of life was lost."

    In addition to educating children, the book serves as an introduction
    for adults unfamiliar with Armenian history and culture.

    Pattie was also one of the authors of Treasured Objects: Armenian
    Daily Life in the Ottoman Empire, which served as part of an exhibit
    at the Armenian Institute in London and even includes descriptions of
    objects brought over by Pattie's own grandmother during the Genocide.

    Combining her artistic background with her anthropological research
    has given Pattie a deep appreciation for Armenian material culture
    and media - one that she hopes to pass on to ALMA visitors. Pattie
    explained, "I think use of multimedia - such as performing arts as
    well as crafts - is very important. It allows visitors to understand
    that Armenians didn't just survive; they regenerated themselves and
    continue to create and thrive. I want them to leave ALMA thinking,
    'What an amazing past, but also, what an exciting future.'"

    So far, Pattie has enjoyed getting acquainted with ALMA and with the
    thriving Boston-area Armenian community.

    "The people [at ALMA] are great and very welcoming, and
    supportive.People have emailed me their ideas for the museum [...] I
    love hearing what people think and [their] ideas. We try to incorporate
    them," she said, adding with a smile, "The Watertown community has
    been so welcoming."

    In addition to several larger projects in the works, Pattie shared
    that there will be an ALMA lecture on November 15, featuring,
    Nora Lessersohn, a Harvard University Divinity School researcher,
    discussing the cultural traditions of the Ottoman-Armenian community.




    From: A. Papazian
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