Hourig Attarian (Ph.D. Education, McGill University) is currently Assistant Professor
in the Department of Education, Concordia University and an affiliate/core member of
the university’s internationally renowned Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling
(COHDS). Anchored in the blurred genre of life history and autobiographical inquiry, her
interdisciplinary work focuses on storying memory and identity through visual and
narrative explorations. In 2008-2009, she was Artist-in-residence for the Oral History &
Performance Group of the CURA project titled Life Stories of Montrealers Displaced by
War, Genocide and Other Human Rights Violations at COHDS. The resulting work titled
Stories scorched from the desert sun (a co-authored script for a staged reading with
dramaturge Rachael van Fossen), documented and storied intergenerational narratives of
genocide survivors with an emphasis on women’s and girls’ experiences. Her other
current collaborative research-creation project titled Come wash with us: Seeking home in
story (with Montreal-based multimedia artists Khadija Baker and Shahrzad Arshadi, and
Ottawa-based film scholar Kumru Bilici) seeks to recount stories of mothers, daughters
and granddaughters attempting to come to terms with memories of war and genocide. She
has explored the collaborative process of writing, staging and performing difficult
memories through various scholarly publications and presentations.