DocX Diaries: Reflections From Emily Mkrtichian and Kamee Abrahamian

Emily Mkrtichian is a filmmaker and multimedia artist whose work is deeply influenced by her upbringing in a displaced, diasporic family. Kamee Abrahamian is a queer artist, storyteller, producer, mother, waitress and witch whose work summons ancestral reclamation, diasporic futurism and justice. They participated in the DocX Residency: Another World is Possible at the Duke Center for Documentary Studies (CDS) in spring 2025 — conceived by Stephanie Owens and Nyssa Chow as an invitation for documentary artists to connect, breathe and create. 

In the conversation below, they reflect on this experience and time spent working on “The Artsakh Archive,” a project to collect oral histories, satellite imagery and film footage of the displaced families of Artsakh and create a feature length film exploring the reconstruction of memory and the reclamation of joy.                       

Emily: Do you remember finding out about this fellowship for the first time, and what drew you to want to apply with our project?

Kamee: Yes! You sent me a link and I couldn't really wrap my head around it because it felt so deeply connected to our work and practice in such a profound, serendipitous way. I also remember saying “my answer is always yes” to being in creative process and collaboration with you. 

Emily: When I sent you the application, I remember feeling very nervous because we had this big, ambitious idea of an archive film — one that was hoping to preserve some memories from an entire country — but I just had my first kid and I was truly underwater in terms of physical and mental capacity. But this film was knocking down our door, and I knew what I needed was the time and space to be together and just think freely about the past and possible futures.

“I think the biggest part that drew us in was the time and space, and the generative possibility of us actually being together. With our babies.”

Kamee: We had just come from presenting our films at the Arab Film Festival in SF as well, where we were on a panel about radical archiving and reclamation, so it was all very timely. But I think the biggest part of it that drew us in was the time and space, and the generative possibility of us actually being together. With our babies.

Emily: Every residency that we had looked at previously didn’t allow us to come with kids, or as a family. For us, at this stage as parents and caregivers, it wasn’t feasible to be away from our families for a month or more at a time, making it impossible to carve out the time and space a residency is meant to provide for artists. The DocX fellowship did not have this rule and the generous grant allowed us to find childcare during our time at Duke. 

Kamee: Yes, most residencies and fellowships don't take our responsibilities and obligations as caregivers into consideration, they also don't typically don't even provide a childcare stipend or perceive childcare as an access need. Which it is!

Emily: For both of us, this was a transformative experience because we didn’t have to separate ourselves from our identities as parents. The intersection of creative work and caregiving is exceptionally generative and fruitful, if the two can be allowed to co-exist. 

“The intersection of creative work and caregiving is exceptionally generative and fruitful, if the two can be allowed to co-exist.”

Kamee: Absolutely. And this is such an important piece to highlight because our artistic work and creative process, all of the stories we tell and films we make, are rooted in care. As in, I believe that our process and creative output as artists is in and of itself a practice of care, an act of care, of caring for our ancestral memory, the movements we come from and belong to, and the future generations to come. Care is a multidimensional, relation practice, it can't just go in one direction.

Emily: What do you think became possible in our creative thinking as a result of having this time and space, with our families in tow?

Kamee: Well, my caregiver-self and artist-self are not separate or opposed to one another. I see those harmful narratives floating around the mainstream, and I think part of our work and collaboration is to resist those narratives, to show the world that my motherhood does not hinder or harm our creative lives or artistic practices in any way. In fact, it bolsters it!

Emily: I agree. I think it allowed us to bring our full selves to the ideation of this film, which resulted in really interesting new formulations and allowed us to think multidimensionally about what a “film” or an “archive” can be. We explored different iterations of this project in different mediums throughout its release; for example using filmed materials to create an installation that could be exhibited in the next 1-2 years, books and zines that could be released throughout the production and exhibition process, and the physical and digital creation of an archive that can be accessible in perpetuity.

Kamee: Yes! And generating all that becomes all the more possible because we are able to imagine a future, whether it's in the next few years or longer-term, in which we are able (and welcome) to show up with all parts of ourselves in the work that we do. To not leave anybody behind when we imagine possible worlds and futures.