Documenting the crime: the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute and transnational heritage activism

This article analyses a temporary exhibition launched at the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute (AGMI) in Yerevan in April 2025, situating it within the museum’s broader practices. Focusing on foreign eyewitness testimonies from diplomats, missionaries, journalists, and relief workers, the exhibition frames documentation not only as historical evidence but also as a form of moral and political intervention. While acknowledging denial as a significant context, the article shifts attention to how AGMI positions documentation as an active strategy in contemporary debates on historical accountability. It argues that through these practices, AGMI pursues what we term ‘transnational heritage activism’: a strategy aimed at social and political change by mobilising cross-border actors and networks through a specific articulation of Armenian Genocide memory. The study situates this form of activism within the context of memorial museums and heritage institutions, emphasising its mobilising ambitions and structural constraints. Drawing on close readings of exhibition texts, AGMI documents, and relevant literature, the article demonstrates how curatorial framing and programming seek to reinterpret the gap between global acknowledgement of the genocide and the lack of effective political action while highlighting the necessity of reception studies to evaluate how these claims and strategies are understood by diverse audiences.