April 24 is marked as Remembrance Day of the Armenian Genocide. 2015 particularly stands out because it’s been 100 years since the genocide.

The art space gallery at Fresno City College is one of the many venues in Fresno that will have events to remember those lost to the genocide.

Artist Joyce Gostanian Kierejczyk hosted an Art Hop event on March 5. Guests were greeted at the entrance with a mound of forget-me-nots. Guests then could write the name of a loved one who died in the Armenian genocide on a piece of paper, slip it on the flower and place it in the exhibit itself.

The actual exhibit consisted of paper sculptures that represented those lost in the Armenian Genocide as well as photography pieces of Armenia by Peter Carapetian.

Under the hanging sculptures were piles of raisins made to look like graves, where guests then placed their flowers.

The exhibit contained 937.5 pounds of raisins that was donated by the Caruthers Raisin Packing Company and Dennis Housepan.

“This half ton of raisins signifies the 1.5 million people that died during the Armenian Genocide,” said by Joyce Gostanian Kierejczyk.

Everything in this exhibit is completely symbolic by nature, but the artist goes the extra mile. During Art Hop, Joyce Gostanian was there with her art, mingling with guests and telling her stories.

Not only is she undeniably talented, but she so flawlessly preserves history so those of the present and future can remember what happened to their ancestors.

Also posted on the wall were quotes by Joyce Gostanian.

“The stories that I heard many times were of the Armenian families that were tortured and killed and sent off to march into the desert. Although this story seemed untrue to my viewpoint, my mother would repeat it throughout her life as the story she heard as a child. The same story is repeated by many generations of Armenians of the Armenian Genocide.”

These stories, although so shocking they may have sounded unreal, were very real and stressed the importance of remembering the past and those who were lost, no matter how dark and tragic.

This exhibit will be running until April 9 in Fresno City College’s Art Space Gallery.