On April 24, ArmeniaNow cartoonist Agnes Avagyan will take part in an exhibition dedicated to the 90 th anniversary of the Genocide, in Aleppo, Syria. The exhibition includes cartoons, paintings, photos, digital art and other works by Armenians from different countries.

Agnes’s great-grandparents from her mother’s side were from Constantinopole ( Istanbul), where they owned a silk factory. As life for Armenians became dangerous, Agnes’ founding family members left their belongings in Turkey and escaped to Greece on a small ship.

Agnes, who is 23, recalls her great-grandmother, who died in 1994, telling her the story of her family. They managed to save themselves by paying golden coins to some of the Turks and in return they would show them the safe roads to Greek ships, which took them to Soloniki in Greece where they resettled like many Armenians of that time.

Her great grandparents eventually moved to Soviet Armenia.

“With my cartoons on Genocide, I want to show not only the fact of what happened, but I also want to show that despite anything the Armenian nation survived, it exists and moreover is an independent state which gathers around itself the Armenians spread around the world,” Agnes says.