Join us for a special performance of Bones in the Desert, a powerful new play by British-Armenian playwright Joe Nerssessian, directed by Chris Elwell and developed with Half Moon.

Moving between past and present, Bones in the Desert follows two young men separated by a century, yet connected by experiences of loss, survival and the search for belonging. Rooted in the enduring legacy of the Armenian Genocide, the play explores how histories of violence and displacement reverberate across generations, shaping identity, family and diaspora. Following the performance, Joe Nerssessian and members of the creative team will be joined by Suzan Meryem Rosita for a conversation exploring the questions at the heart of the play: memory and inheritance, intergenerational trauma, diaspora identity, and the continuing resonance of Armenian histories and stories today.

NB: Bones in the Desert can also be seen at other venues as part of its Autumn tour, but this special performance, co-hosted by the Armenian Institute, is the only one to be followed by a conversation with playwright Joe Nerssessian, offering audiences a unique opportunity to hear directly from the writer and engage more deeply with the ideas behind the work.

Meet the Speakers

Joe Nerssessian is a British-Armenian writer who grew up by the seaside in Kent, detached from the global Armenian diaspora. After several years searching for a connection with his heritage, he moved to Armenia in 2018 where he worked as a journalist and teacher. Upon returning to the UK, he studied for an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Kent. He writes both fiction and creative non-fiction, exploring subjects including death, grief, inherited trauma, as well as Armenia and the Armenian Genocide – of which his grandfather was a survivor. He is currently based in Berlin.

Suzan Meryem Rosita is the Director of the Oxford Network for Armenian Genocide Research and CDF Fellow in Women’s, Gender and Queer Histories at the Faculty of History, Oxford University. For more on the Queer Armenian Library residency at the Bodleian Libraries, please see here.

The Oxford Network for Armenian Genocide Research currently runs a series on ‘Creative Storytelling and Oral History’ for students and staff at the University of Oxford. As part of this series we are offering, with our project partners, oral history training courses, seminars, and public lectures.

Doing this, we hope to raise awareness for the importance of oral history and survivor testimonies as educational tools. This series is inspired by our collaboration with Columbia University Oral History Archives and our planned output is a graphic novel based on the Armenian genocide survivor testimonies digitised and transcribed as part of this collaboration.