"They Will Take My Island" by Atom Egoyan and Mary Kouyoumdjian

They Will Take My Island (2020) is a collaboration between Kouyoumdjian and Egoyan over their mutual admiration of the Armenian painter Arshile Gorky, who has been highly influential to their work, and is a musical documentary hybrid infused with themes of family and immigration. The work integrates audio and film footage from Egoyan's Ararat, a film that explores the life of Arshile Gorky in the context of the Armenian Genocide and modern life, and A Portrait of Arshile, a film Egoyan and his wife Arsinée Khanjian made in dedication to their son, named after the painter. It also includes interviews with Saskia Spender, granddaughter of Arshile Gorky and President of the Arshile Gorky Foundation; Parker Field, Managing Director of the Arshile Gorky Foundation; and Michael Taylor, Chief Curator of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Performed by JACK and Silvana Quartets Commissioned by the Live Arts Department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and premiered by The Met on January 26, 2021