LOS ANGELES — The first permanent monument in the city of Los Angeles to memorialize the Armenian Genocide was unveiled Saturday at Grand Park, KNBC-TV reports
County Supervisor Michael Antonovich and Armenian community and clergy leaders marked the installation of the sculpture, created by Vahagn Thomasian, during a 5 p.m. ceremony.
“This remarkable memorial honors the 1.5 million victims of the Armenian Genocide and Grand Park is a superb venue for reflection and solemn contemplation,” Antonovich said in a statement.
Conceived and designed by Ara Oshagan, Levon Parian and Vahagn Thomasian of the iWitness collective, the monument weighs about five tons and is sculpted out of black volcanic tuff rock from the Ararat Valley of Armenia. It will be placed permanently at Olive Court in Grand Park.
The rock is ringed by metal bars embedded in the ground and etched with the words of Pulitzer Prize winning Armenian American writer William Saroyan: “In the time of your life, live — so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it.”
The wording doesn’t just talk about the Armenian Genocide but about many other genocides,” Thomasian says. “It kind of gives hope that things like this don’t happen again.”
