Service and Other Stories: A Living History Project is a year-long exhibition that engages U.S. military veterans from all 20th and 21st century conflicts. The project, led by Los Angeles artist Farrah Karapetian, involved veterans Joe Debble, Mike Felch, John Warhank, Justin Wilson and ROTC cadets. The installation shares their story as veterans with the community. Their experience is part of the multitude of voices that belong to veterans in the Los Angeles region.

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Service and Other Stories
Artist Farrah Karapetian, working with servicemen from the Coast Guard, Vietnam, the War on Terror and current ROTC cadets, creates a series of photograms linking the personal memories of the former to the current experience of the latter generation.

This exhibition is intended to spark questions about the personal experience of service men and women and to increase all of our familiarity with the circumstances of war. Going beyond politics, Service and Other Stories attempts to reveal the real people behind America's wars. Included in the exhibition will be a living history corner in which visitors can record their own narratives and memories associated with conflict.

Over the course of the year, Angels Gate Cultural Center is partnering with other organizations to produce programming that speaks to our perception of the military experience present in the South Bay/Harbor region.

Farrah Karapetian (USA, b. 1978) is an artist who works with camera-less photography in a sculptural field, oftentimes to reveal hidden narratives embedded in the memories of people and places. Recent exhibitions of her artwork include Good Sign, a public installation in abandoned signage for the Flint Public Art Project, Michigan; the 2013 California-Pacific Triennial, Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA; and Rogue Wave '13 (15 Artists From Los Angeles), L.A. Louver Gallery, Venice, CA. Last year, her artwork was included in group exhibitions at the Goethe Institut in Washington DC, Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, the California Museum of Photography at Riverside, and the Torrance Art Museum. She was a MacDowell Fellow (2010) and an artist-in-residence at the Wende Museum, Culver City, CA (2009). Ms. Karapetian earned a Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant for her blog Housing Projects (2012). She received her BA from Yale University (2000) and her MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles (2008). Ms. Karapetian lives and works in Los Angeles.