STORYTELLING AS SPIRITUAL VEHICLE
At Wake Forest University, the mentorship of the poet Dr. Maya Angelou was instrumental in inspiring Ms. Tatoyan's work today as an artist and activist. As a storyteller, she is passionate about art as alchemy -- a means to transform and sublimate trauma.
Ms. Tatoyan and internationally renowned Human Rights barrister Jennifer Robinson of Doughty Street Chambers have co-founded the London/LA/Berlin based social justice/social enterprise production company, Disruptive Narrative, which aims to engage and work with the affected communities of the stories they wish to illuminate.
In addition they have co-founded the LA/Berlin based Hakawati, the non-profit sister company of Disruptive Narrative. Among other things, Hakawati will provide storytelling workshops in various disciplines of cinema in parternship with The Sundance Institute, to frontline communities in order to foster and amplify the voices and narratives of those from which we hear too little.
In 2016, Ms. Tatoyan served on the World Cinema Jury of the Duhok International Film Festival in Kurdistan. She attended the FiSahara Film Festival in the Dakhla refugee camp of Algeria to speak on a panel about Occupied Peoples, Memory and Resistance, to raise awareness of the Sahrawi cause.
Spring/Summer 2017, Ms. Tatoyan served as the Rudolf Arnheim guest artist professor at Humboldt University in Berlin.
Fall 2019, Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University welcomed Ms. Tatoyan and artist and puppet master Ayhan Hülagü to speak about finding her Armenian great-great grandfather's Karagöz puppets in the abandoned family home in Aleppo, Syria.
Ms. Tatoyan and internationally renowned Human Rights barrister Jennifer Robinson of Doughty Street Chambers have co-founded the London/LA/Berlin based social justice/social enterprise production company, Disruptive Narrative, which aims to engage and work with the affected communities of the stories they wish to illuminate.
In addition they have co-founded the LA/Berlin based Hakawati, the non-profit sister company of Disruptive Narrative. Among other things, Hakawati will provide storytelling workshops in various disciplines of cinema in parternship with The Sundance Institute, to frontline communities in order to foster and amplify the voices and narratives of those from which we hear too little.
In 2016, Ms. Tatoyan served on the World Cinema Jury of the Duhok International Film Festival in Kurdistan. She attended the FiSahara Film Festival in the Dakhla refugee camp of Algeria to speak on a panel about Occupied Peoples, Memory and Resistance, to raise awareness of the Sahrawi cause.
Spring/Summer 2017, Ms. Tatoyan served as the Rudolf Arnheim guest artist professor at Humboldt University in Berlin.
Fall 2019, Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University welcomed Ms. Tatoyan and artist and puppet master Ayhan Hülagü to speak about finding her Armenian great-great grandfather's Karagöz puppets in the abandoned family home in Aleppo, Syria.