They Will Take My Island (2021), a collaboration between composer Mary Kouyoumdjian and Oscar-nominated filmmaker Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter), explores the life and influence of Armenian American abstract painter Arshile Gorky. Highly personal original short films and unreleased scenes by Egoyan are interwoven with interviews and new scores by Kouyoumdjian performed by the acclaimed JACK and Silvana Quartets.
They Will Take My Island begins with a photograph of a young Gorky with his mother, taken just before the Armenian Genocide of 1915. It ends with Gorky’s painting hanging in a museum gallery. The complex story of this Armenian American artist is at the root of this world-premiere MetLiveArts digital commission, exploring themes of family, identity and immigration.
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Atom Egoyan, films and direction
Mary Kouyoumdjian, musical composition
Score performed by:
JACK Quartet
Christopher Otto, violin
Austin Wulliman, violin
John Pickford Richards, viola
Jay Campbell, cello
Silvana Quartet
Andie Tanning, violin
Nicole Sharlow, violin
Gillian Gallagher, viola
Maria Jeffers, cello
Mary Kouyoumdjian, voice
Interviews conducted and edited by Mary Kouyoumdjian
Interviewees
Saskia Spender, President of the Arshile Gorky Foundation and granddaughter of Arshile Gorky
Parker Field, Managing Director of the Arshile Gorky Foundation
Michael Taylor, Chief Curator and Deputy Director of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
Video Editor
Cameron Davis
Mix Engineer
Jascha Narveson
Learn and watch more on Arshile Gorky’s work at The Met’s 82nd & Fifth curatorial series.
They Will Take My Island is made possible by Nazar and Artemis Nazarian, the Armenian General Benevolent Union, and Sandra Shahinian.
This presentation is also supported by The Howard & Sarah D. Solomon Foundation.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is on the island known as Mannahatta—now called Manhattan—in Lenapehoking, the homeland of the Lenape people.
