Tamara Gurbis
Founder, Workshop strategist & Video series Producer-Director
Tamara completed her undergraduate studies in sociology at the University of Nantes, France where she also taught as a lecturer. Later, she studied filmmaking in the Soviet Union in the midst of its collapse in the early 90's. While there, she collaborated on projects with film and theater directors from the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (formerly VGIK), actors and other performing artists.
Returning to the United States, she lived in New York City for a decade where she taught as an adjunct film instructor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. She also worked professionally as a freelance videographer and producer. In 2005, a film project welcomed her to the San Francisco Bay Area in California.
For a decade and half, she has filmed, produced, and directed documentary and narrative films as well as promotional and commercial videos for the nonprofit, marketing, and entertainment sectors including international video projects in Haiti, Guatemala, Brazil and others.
She also serves as a community research member at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development and The Rule of Law (CDDRL), and formerly volunteered as a SF+Acumen ambassador for Acumen Fund.
She's strongly drawn to story themes which bridge understanding between different cultures, perspectives, and walks of life. At the base of her passion is also the belief that very human and universal stories are better vehicles for illuminating, informing and influencing than only hard facts.
You can also read her Introductory Statement about why she founded The Lens.
ARMAND VOLKAS
Featured Drama Therapist / workshop Process & Strategy Consultant
Armand is a psychotherapist and Registered Drama Therapist (RDT) in private practice. He is a Board Certified Trainer with The National Association for Drama Therapy.
Armand Volkas directs Healing the Wounds of History, a therapeutic approach in which theatre techniques are used to work with groups of participants from two or more cultures with a common legacy of violent conflict and historical trauma. Healing the Wounds of History has garnered international recognition for its work in bringing groups in conflict together: Germans and Jews; Palestinians and Israelis; Japanese, Chinese and Koreans; Armenians and Turks; African-Americans and European-Americans, to name a few. He is also Artistic Director of The Living Arts Playback Theatre Ensemble.
In addition, Armand is Clinical Director of the Living Arts Counseling Center in Oakland, California as well as Associate Professor in the Counseling Psychology Program at California Institute of Integral Studies and Adjunct Professor at John F. Kennedy University. He has developed innovative programs using drama therapy and expressive arts therapies for social change, intercultural conflict resolution, reconciliation and intercultural communication. At the heart of Armand’s work is a profound respect for the power of personal story to build bridges between people and cultures.
Nermin Soyalp
Associate Producer / CONTENT & Strategist CONSULTANT: Kurds and Turks Conflict Transformation Experiment
Nermin was born in Monterey, California and grew up in Ankara, Turkey. After graduating from Hacettepe University (Ankara, Turkey) in Statistics, she moved to California, and received her MA in Organizational Psychology at John F. Kennedy University, specializing in social systems and network analysis. Currently, in addition to running her consulting practice in Oakland, CA, Nermin is Administrative Director for Healing the Wounds of History and working on her PhD dissertation at California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS). Her thesis is about historical traumas and healing between Armenian, Kurdish, and Turkish ethnicities.
Filiz Celik
Content ConsultanT: Kurds & Turks Conflict Transformation Experiment
A Kurdish Alevi, Filiz was born in Tunceli (Dersim), Turkey. She grew up in Turkey and currently lives in the UK. She recently completed her PhD at Psychosocial Studies Department, Birkbeck, University of London. Her research examines the effects of the 1937-38 Dersim Massacre (post-Republican genocidal massacre in Turkey) on current generations from the psychosocial perspective. The aim is to understand how the massacre may have influenced both the lives of individuals – survivors and later generations – and the related collective, social, and institutional formations.
Filiz also received degrees in International Relationships from Eastern Mediterranean University, Cyprus, and Psychology and Counseling from Swansea Metropolitan University in Wales, UK. She has further counseling training, and is interested in both application and research aspects of psychotherapy.
If you're interested in joining our team, please contact us.
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