Anna Navasardian

Kids I, 2010

Anna Navasardian (American, Armenian, born 1988), Kids I, 2010, acrylic on canvas, 36 x 48 in. Schwartz Art Collection, Harvard Business School, 2011.5.

"I looked at photos of my mother from the Soviet era. As a child of Armenia, she was often photographed in these black and white school photos. The tension between what society and country expected of these children, and what they wanted to be, was palpable to me. It felt like a direct conflict between the innocence of these children and the strictures of the state."—Anna Navasardian