A multidisciplinary artist and writer, I was born in Iran to British-Armenian parents and moved to the UK with my family due to the 1979 Islamic Revolution. My work explores my own hybridity, identity, sense of place and role as an artist living in the Western diaspora.
Image-making, performance and fiction writing enable me to explore and tell stories of my past and present self. Diasporan Armenian identity is investigated through handed down family stories and personal experience. I also excavate photographs: both from my own and other public and private archives, incorporating them into new work through projection, a variety of print media, painting, fiction and playwriting. The experience of displacement is revisited through the history that has shaped my family in our physical and psychological migration over time and space, bringing the past and the present together in one place.
I am an established artist, with over 15 solo exhibitions in the UK, Armenia and Canada. My work is in many public and private collections, including, Tate Britain Library, London, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, National Art Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Rank Xerox Headquarters, Marlow, Provident Financial Group, Bradford, Dean Clough Collection, Halifax, Harris Art Gallery & Museum, Preston, Leeds City Art Gallery & Museums and Special Collections, Brotherton Library, University of Leeds.
My first book of short stories on the Armenians of Iran, Blood Oranges Dipped in Salt (2012) was born out of a PhD in Contemporary Art Practice and described as ‘the best piece of auto-ethnography I have ever read’ (Prof. Eric Knudson, uclan.ac.uk).
A chance discovery informed my second book of short stories. Swallows and Armenians (2019) which championed the Anglo-Armenian children from Aleppo, Syria who inspired Arthur Ransome to write his first book of fiction, now a classic of children’s English literature. An exhibition of the same name with contemporary works created for the project and historic works from a private collection, supported by Arts Council, England toured venues in the north of England during 2020-21. In July 2022, an actor-musician version of Swallows and Armenians had its world premiere with Cumbria Opera Group. My first full-length theatre production, supported by ACE National Lottery Project Funding, toured venues in London and Leeds in 2025.
My first piece of writing was published in The Guardian: Waiting for Father Christmas in Tehran (22.12.14) and my epic poem Armenian Coffee on the 2020 war between Azerbaijan and Armenia, appeared in The Big Issue, North (01.2021).
The making of Swallows and Armenians theatre production
Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons is a classic book about children having adventures on a lake. The Walker family have always been depicted as quintessentially English in the book, film and TV adaptations of the story; but what has been known but still, widely ignored is that Ransome modelled his characters on the Altounyans, an Anglo-Armenian family from Aleppo, Syria. Swallows and Armenians the book and theatre production, reinstated the cultural diversity of the children who inspired Ransome, delving into the very special but fractured relationship between the family and their friend, the famous children’s author.
“When originally approached to collaborate in the creation of Swallows and Armenians, I, like many who come across it, was naive to the significance of this astonishing story and unaware of how the journey of the Altounyans mirrored our own family history; across the Middle East and all the way to the Lake District and back again. War, climate change and political upheaval in our time has contributed to so many families experiencing migration, displacement, the struggle to survive and finding a place to belong. This play represents that resilience, courage and diversity that stretches across the world and back to our own doorsteps.” Persia Babayan-Taylor.
From the book Swallows and Armenians by Karen Babayan, adapted by Karen Babayan and Persia Babayan-Taylor; music composed by Persia Babayan-Taylor and arranged by Madeleine Wilshire. This full-length theatre production, supported by ACE National Lottery Project Funding, toured venues in London and Leeds in 2025.