LUNCHEON
NO. 12
AW 2021-22
MAISON DE LA CULTURE ARMÉNIENNE
by Josefine Skomars
In the 9th arrondissement there’s a home away from home for Armenians living in Paris. Mamikon and Tchinar Arakelian, a couple who migrated to Paris during the post-Soviet Union upheaval, have run their canteen at the Armenian cultural centre for the past 17 years. I share lunch here with my friends Jakob Müller-Meernach and Suzanna Spertsyan. Jakob, who recently arrived in Paris from Germany, has already become a son of the canteen, while this is Suzanna’s first meal from Mamikon and Tchinar’s kitchen. Herself an Armenian who grew up elsewhere, Suzanna’s curiosity about her origins has led her to explore in her projects the culture of her motherland and what it means to be Armenian. At a table filled with Caucasian flavours we travel to an Armenia-away-from-Armenia, where a lingering homesickness is soothed by food.
Photographs by Jakob Müller-Meernach
by Josefine Skomars
In the 9th arrondissement there’s a home away from home for Armenians living in Paris. Mamikon and Tchinar Arakelian, a couple who migrated to Paris during the post-Soviet Union upheaval, have run their canteen at the Armenian cultural centre for the past 17 years. I share lunch here with my friends Jakob Müller-Meernach and Suzanna Spertsyan. Jakob, who recently arrived in Paris from Germany, has already become a son of the canteen, while this is Suzanna’s first meal from Mamikon and Tchinar’s kitchen. Herself an Armenian who grew up elsewhere, Suzanna’s curiosity about her origins has led her to explore in her projects the culture of her motherland and what it means to be Armenian. At a table filled with Caucasian flavours we travel to an Armenia-away-from-Armenia, where a lingering homesickness is soothed by food.
Photographs by Jakob Müller-Meernach