THRIVE is an AIWA project dedicated to highlighting individuals who are doing remarkable things in their personal and professional lives to better themselves and those around them. These individuals are inspiring, dynamic, innovative and interesting. Today, we feature AIWA Thrive: Sarko Meené, Artist, Film maker, Writer, Athlete.

I like to say that “I am just a girl”, now already a woman I suppose, but a girl at heart, still… forever? I work in various spheres of the art world from painting to films to writing. I prefer not to define myself one way or another. I believe the identity is a never ending cyclical movement and not dogmatic. I morph every month into something and someone I need to yet understand and learn about. It is fascinating.

I am born in a very interesting family of a substantial translator and writer grandfather (Karpis Surenyan), a singer grandmother who sang at Armenian national quire for 45 years (Mariam Davtyan), another set of grandparents who built “an empire” of respect and a good name with no means. A genius surgeon father and my mother: a very beloved doctor who I believe despite her amazing career is a “professional mother” before anything else. I have a walking dictionary brother, who puts all my knowledge to shame since kindergarten. I always dreamt of having a sister, but was not blessed with one, so now I have a great group of female friends who are like sisters to me. I boast very much with the fact that all my female friends are very successful, very smart, very funny and very beautiful.

I will honestly confess that I am not a feminist, although I can be perceived as one if one does not know me, in fact after doing so many various things in life and traveling the world, one profession I would really like to truly succeed in is just being a woman, a mother, a good companion to a great man. Feels odd to say this in the modern world and for this article, but I do believe my strength is in my vulnerability and honesty.

“Life is too simple to simply live it.”
The world complicates everything that is simple, because simple is hard to understand. Simple cannot be dissected, divided into parts to then be put together so that it can be understood. Simple is hard to grasp as one whole, so we add unneeded particles to it and complicate it so we can understand it. But life is simple, and not everything needs to be understood. There is only one purpose in life really, it is to live.

Growing up through several wars, peace and stability is what comes to mind above and beyond anything else, and I cannot live without freedom, freedom for the self and in large. So I may contradict myself because feminism is fighting for that freedom, but I believe in balance. So I do hope when the pendulum stops swinging so violently as it does now, it will slow down, countries, people, men and women can find a balanced existence together on this one very small but very vast and very beautiful planet.

Some years ago, one evening I went to one of my most favorite locations in Armenia, a large field from where I can see Ara mountain, Aragats, Ararat and Hatis. And I was standing there in the evening wind which is so common to summer evenings in the Armenian mountains. It was sunset and it was so incredibly beautiful. I felt so small but so powerful. I felt beyond grounded in that field, like a tree or like a rock. And I thought, I could have never been born anywhere else but from these mountains. I wrote a note for myself, which said: “I could have not been born anywhere else in the world! This country is the essence of me. Every step I take on this land, empowers me. I feel love, I feel loved, I feel like magic and I feel responsible…I don’t know responsible to do what exactly… I guess to be true?! To be good?! To be beautiful?! To be fearless?! Or maybe simply to love… God.”
We are people of mountains and I think I take pride in that strength the most. I also take pride in being an Armenian WOMAN, especially a woman. I had a public installation in the heart of Stepanakert in 2019. It was called “My home is my castle” and it was an installation which I built from very transparent metal mesh on top of a house which was falling apart. The metal mesh though hardly visible was holding the house together. It symbolically was representing women, Armenian women “Nakhshun Baji” (beautiful sister) a name for the Armenian woman who holds the house together while the men would go to war. So as an Armenian woman especially, I recognize my immense strength to hold a castle together, while remaining a woman – a beautiful sister. I can talk endlessly about how much I love being an Armenian. My grandfather used to say ” Ես մարդ եմ, բայց հայ մարդ եմ, ուրիշ մարդ լինել չեմկարող:”

I think I somewhat answered that above, but to elaborate a bit more, for me Armenian culture is family. And maybe that is one of the reasons I feel a bit rebellious about the feminist movement now days. I like that I was not raised in a westernized culture, I am sure that I never want to go there in my values. I was raised and shaped on values that were built around family. The modern world is promoting the idea of freedom in the form of “divorce” (if you dont like it you can always leave) and thus distancing people from one another. Human life has one core value that we cannot lose or our lives will lose meaning, and that is to he needed…needing each other! To be needed is what makes us truly happy. And love of course, but LOVING and not being loved. We have got it all wrong so far…
Somehow I do understand that I may seem to be coming from a place where I may not understand the abuse women go through, but trust me I have seen that too and I still stand for family unity. I think we need to find a balance to live in our culture as Armenians and progress into more freedom orientated nation at large and like I said, the pendulum needs to swing long enough for it to center itself in the middle – in peace and in balance.

I am not sure how worthy are my thoughts, but I am grateful for the opportunity to be heard. As a woman I think my job is to “make beauty” beyond all other things that I can do during my short existence, and there can never be too much beauty, can there?! The nature proves it every single day that there can never be too much beauty, if we look at the sun alone, how it comes and how it goes every day, gracefully and peacefully, bringing light and then once gone makes sure we have a bit of her still (reflected on the moon) she never truly goes away and I want to imagine that she knows that we need her… we have so much to learn from the sun…