Archaeology of the Present
A community-based art residency, happening in October 2025 over a period of ten days in Goris and the Armenian-Azerbaijani Border Region, twelve international and Armenian artists engaged with local contexts, practices, and communities to explore how art can contribute to a more bearable life in border regions, and how people in conflict-affected areas conceive of their future. The residency concluded with a festival, providing an opportunity to share and celebrate the connections established and the artworks created during this process.
In parallel, a group of researchers will accompany the residency, observing, engaging in dialogue, and documenting both the transformative moments and the instances that reveal the limits of what art and dialogue can achieve. The knowledge generated will contribute to the research project Contemporary Art, Popular Culture and Peacebuilding in Eastern Europe.
On site, I was mainly involved with two projects:
Objects of future and past
with Rada Leu, Stella Loretsyan
Women and mothers from their informal women's club in Goris, at the Armenian-Azerbaijani Border were invited to share stories based on an object, following the creation of an "object for the future": Something they wish to pass on to coming generations. The project fostered dialogue and shared reflection in a region marked by war and displacement.
Love Letters
with Asmik Aleksanyan, Piyusha Sumanapala
Through a series of workshops with teenagers, the participants engaged in trust and relaxation exercises and reflected on their emotional worlds. They then wrote letters about the things they love — and later translated these feelings into movement. Their gestures were collected into a unified choreography, their voices reading their letters recorded, along with the sounds of their movements, transforming them into a layered sound and movement installation.
Objects of future and past
with Rada Leu, Stella Loretsyan
Women and mothers from their informal women's club in Goris, at the Armenian-Azerbaijani Border were invited to share stories based on an object, following the creation of an "object for the future": Something they wish to pass on to coming generations. The project fostered dialogue and shared reflection in a region marked by war and displacement.
Love Letters
with Asmik Aleksanyan, Piyusha Sumanapala
Through a series of workshops with teenagers, the participants engaged in trust and relaxation exercises and reflected on their emotional worlds. They then wrote letters about the things they love — and later translated these feelings into movement. Their gestures were collected into a unified choreography, their voices reading their letters recorded, along with the sounds of their movements, transforming them into a layered sound and movement installation.
