Armenian artist Sargis is holding the “Respiro” (Breath) exhibition at the Turkish pavilion of the 56^th Venice Biennale that kicked off in May. According to ermenihaber.am, the Turkish Cumhuriyet reports that the English and Turkish versions of the catalog about that exhibition became a reason for a crisis. The catalog that was supposed to be distributed on the day of the opening of the exhibition (7 May) included an article by Raquel Dink.

Due to the phrase “Armenian Genocide” in the article, the catalog was banned since a reminder of the genocide was criticized by the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Culture, which sponsored the exhibition, as well as those supporting the Turkish pavilion.

In her article, Raquel Dink recalls her husband and Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, who was murdered in Turkey in 2007.

“This is a great sorrow. The sorrow of the Armenian Genocide of 1915, the sorrow became infinite along with the sorrow of the loss of people left unburied and forgotten.”

Sargis and the exhibition’s coordinator Defne Ayas found an alternative. In Venice they exhibited the catalogs that hadn’t been distributed in a vertical “coffin”, expressing their protest against censure.