Lousnak was born on January 1st, 1967, in Beirut. When she was eleven years old she fled the Lebanese war with her parents to live in London, England. A year later, they moved to Paris where they lived for three years before settling in Montreal.
At the age of 17, Lousnak already had a job as assistant art director with the monthly Montreal Magazine. It was the beginning of a long career as a graphic designer which led her to sign the albums of Lhasa de Sela, Fredric Gary Comeau, Yeszcze Raz and Yves Desrosiers for which she won, in 2003, a Félix at the Gala de L’ADISQ for best CD booklet of the year.
Under the critical eye of the great sculptor Arto Tchakmakdjian, Lousnak developed her talent as a painter and sculptor while attending visual art courses at UQAM. She had several showings of her works in Montreal and New York. Furthermore, she contributed to many projects with Armand Vaillancourt and co-signed a showing of photographs in Paris with Atom Egoyan. Following that, she was invited to exhibit her photographs in Geneva and then in Munich.
Lousnak is also an actress. Among other roles, she performed the part of Shoushan, the mother of the painter Arshile Gorky, in Atom Egoyan’s movie Ararat (winner of 5 Genie awards), which takes her to Cannes film festival’s red carpet along with Atom Egoyan, Arsinée Khanjian, Charles Aznavour, Marie-Josée Croze, David Alpay, and the film producer Ropbert Lantos.
"We take our roots as leaven to make our own bread." -Lousnak
Of Armenian origin, it is through dancing and music that Lousnak is able to express her heritage. A singer-songwriter, her work is influenced by her love for traditional Armenian songs. François Lalonde, under the Label Mille Pattes, produces her first album, Lousnak.
A militant for memory, Lousnak chose remembrance as her political and humanitarian focus. At the end of 1990’s she created an event that was eventually called Talk Genocide. A multi-disciplinary event (song, danse, poetry, theatre, etc.) that takes place punctually in April and has the goal of sensibly educating the public about the atrocities past and present through the arts. www.talkgenocide.org
She is working presently on her second album and at the same time planting the seeds of a multi media center that will be called Anima nova (New sole) at Saint-Hippolyte, the door of North, meant for 2010.
www.lousnak.com
www.talkgenocide.org
The video is in French & English / Le vidéo est en français & en anglais
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Lousnak • Elahe Machouf • Red Names • Shirin • Ms.sun • Looli • Hossein Afsahi • Saeed Yousef • Danielle Ouanes
Hassan Pooya • Soudabeh Ardavan • Setareh Abbasi • Shohreh Kia • Mahbubeh • Payam Akhavan • Shahrzad Mojab
Béatrice Vaugrante • Masoud Raouf • Mostafa Henaway • Stephan Kazemi • Saiid Ismati • Zari Daknema • Antigone
Marie Boti • Felicitas Treue • Bahram Ghadimi • Shokoufe Sakhi • Iraj Mesdaghi • Reza Gahfari • Ezat Mossallanejed