Author and artist Kristin Anahit Cass will be in Glendale to present her new book, “Reparations of the Heart: Toward a SWANA Futurity.” The event will be held on Friday, August 2 at 7 p.m. at the Center for Armenians Arts, located at 250 N. Orange St. in Glendale, California.
The presentation will include a discussion between the author and Araxie Cass. The event is free and open to the public. 90-minute, free parking is available. For more information, call (818) 243-4112.
Through a vibrant tapestry of essays, stories, poems, quotes, and detailed, often surreal images. Kristin Anahit Cass explores what the world looks like from a SWANA (South West Asia and North Africa) futurist perspective in her debut book. “Reparations of the Heart” rejects the imperialist narratives and hopelessness that loom around us, instead proposing an alternative future where creativity, culture, and community flourish. Moving from past to present and into the future, memories of beloved ancestors inform various artistic iterations of SWANA futurity, as narrated by the vast diversity of their photographic subjects. Divided into three parts, this book crosses time and borders. Ancestors connects us to our past, building on the wisdom of our ancestors and infusing it with a greater openness and liberation for all people.
“Reparations of the Heart” offers Cass’ unique perspective as an Armenian elder. Her long experience as a mother, activist, writer, and artist infuses the book with a unique perspective on envisioning the future to build a compassionate and inclusive world, holding compassion as a core value, respecting a spectrum of identities, and ways to love and live in the world. The book was inspired by the aftermath of the 1915 Armenian Genocide, and was written in the midst of the recent genocide in Artsakh, and the ongoing genocide in Gaza. The wounds of these atrocities are felt on its pages, but against all odds it insists that change is possible. This profound book imagines the future and envisions creating it, encompassing land back, reparations, ethnic and cultural diversity, ancestral practices, and shared SWANA culture.
Kristin Anahit Cass is a writer and artist working in photography, video, sculpture and other media. Cass’s work imagines the future, touches the past, and envisions a better world. As Tamar Boyadjian noted in Hyperallergic, Cass’s work “recognizes the lived experience of trauma, yet owns the ability of humans to individually and collectively reframe that experience in their hearts to make way for reparations.” In addition to her arts education, Cass has worked with women and minority owned businesses, artists, and nonprofits in her career as a lawyer. She is one of the founders of the LGBTQ platform Entanik (Family) where she’s active in supporting creatives in the global community. Her “Borderlands Under Fire” project was a finalist for the 2018 Dorothea Lange-Paul Taylor Prize. Cass is a graduate of the University of Chicago. She lives in Chicago and Denver.
