Lilit Avakian

archiver, mentor, artist

STORYTELLING ON THE FOUNDER

Lilit Avakian is the founder of Sermi, a learning collective for diaspora women and men exploring cultural identity, ancestral knowledge, and somatic creativity.

She is a creative anthropologist and slow traveler who has spent years researching fading traditions. She grew up in the deep South of Louisiana, the daughter of immigrant parents who fled the troubled aftermath of the Armenian Genocide.

Her mother was deported at the age of 16 and she did not meet most of her extended family until she was 23 years old.

She held questions most children don't have words for ~ questions about belonging, about cultural identity, and that internal knowing that buzzes beneath the skin.

The two questions that stayed with Lilit longest:

How do I preserve and pass down the knowledge of my lineage when I am so far away from home and how do I feed my creativity in a society that praises productivity over curiosity?

FOLLOWING YOUR CURIOSITY

In Lilit’s first visit to Armenia in 2023, something shifted.

In that encounter with place, she realized the seed of knowledge she had always been carrying. Lilit quietly held the talents of her elders, without even truly knowing them.

She picked up and put down jobs as often as she did food, not out of boredom, but out of deep curiosity for fresh insights.

Up until then, she had traveled most of the US, doing whatever odd end jobs granted her the ability to see the world, to immerse herself in micro cultures, and to turn her research into art.

She hiked intense mountains, wrote poetry, learned how to weave, researched fading traditions in Armenia, Russia, Egypt, South America, Vietnam, Sicily, and Italy, collaborated with artists, photographed beautiful people, and danced amongst jaw dropping backgrounds.

Lilit Avakian diaspora research
Lilit Avakian founder Sermi creative anthropologist
Lilit Avakian somatic creativity cultural identity
Lilit Avakian creative mentor
Lilit Avakian slow travel diaspora research
Lilit Avakian weaving tradition keeper cultural preservation
DSCF8742.JPG
DSCF8786.JPG
Lilit Avakian Armenian ancestral knowledge
Lilit Avakian Russian ancestral knowledge
Lilit Avakian Ragusa, Sicily ancestral knowledge

  • "Motivating me to push forward with my ideas and goals in becoming a healing arts facilitator. Lilit is brilliant, poetic, artsy, and intuitive with her approach for transformational healing. I highly recommend Lilit for anyone looking to activate creativity, healing, and inspired change!” ~ N.

  • "Lilit is a being who collects and gathers. In conversation with the creative and touching the roots of subtle expression. Seeing what others have yet to notice." ~ A.

  • “Having Lilit as a coach has been a true joy and a transformative experience. I love how she incorporates movement, dance, visualization exercises for grounding and reflections. Her insights and guidance have helped shape me as a coach, activating ideas, creativity, and self trust in me." ~ N.

  • " I had a cathartic and transformative experience with Lilit during her breathwork cereomny last night. Lilit uses very intentional words, smells, and fixtures that curate the energy in the room in a way that made me feel not only safe to open, but allowed me to release a lot of pent up frustration and stress. " ~ S.

  • "Your teachings have changed me both physically and mentally. The last few months were filled with anxiety and self defeating thoughts. I am calmer. I can work through emotions, and not let the external forces lead me. I am finally in tune with myself, and loving myself. I can feel again. Thank you.” ~ D.

Through research and artistic expression, she has grown to deeply appreciate the uncaptured beauty of Home.

Her work is for those with wandering questions, curiosities around their roots, and those craving a gentle nudge towards using research as a doorway to connect with their creative genius.

THE CENTER OF LILIT’S CRAFT

At the center of her work is a belief that artistic expression is not supplemental to any living system,  it is essential to it. And underneath that belief, two questions she often asks:

How can history and contemporary life function as continuous systems, rather than a separated past and present?

And where can we learn to work with, not against, the fragmented inherited knowledge we hold?

“As an Armenian artist, I aim to investigate the essence of unspoken human relation through movement, poetry, land, and sensational exploration.

With support from my collection of living archives, I develop works that embody philosophical, sociological, and psychological findings of a diaspora woman on the road.

The unity of research, contemplation, and sensation actively guides the way I process my representations of the unspoken intelligence within, and it’s relation to historical and contemporary expressions.”