From illustrations to VR and filmmaking, there are creative ways through which to tell compelling stories. Writer and filmmaker Ben Mauk, artist and writer Molly Crabapple, and actor and director Michael Goorjian delve into their experiences documenting civil war, forced reeducation camps, and repressions, shedding light on the innovative and sometimes unconventional approaches to storytelling.
The third edition of EVN Media Festival that took place in May 2024, featured an impressive lineup of distinguished journalists, innovators and scholars. However, beyond sharing journalistic expertise, the festival was a celebration of the power of media to shape narratives and ignite change.
This edition of our magazine features some of the exhibitions that were on display during the EVN Media Fest, the podcasts that we recorded with the audience about the turbulence felt by the individuals living through transitional and fateful times, and last but not least, this issue will feature some of the panel discussions that looked into the prospects of national security and capacity building, talked about visualizing realities and the creative aspects of storytelling and up close and personal discussions with journalists like Jon Lee Anderson and Ben Mauk, artists like Michael Goorjian and Molly Crabapple.
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Discussions
Panel Discussion: National Security and Capacity Building
In the aftermath of the 2020 Artsakh War, and particularly in light of the Azerbaijani incursion into Jermuk in 2022, it became evident that Armenia had to rebuild its security architecture and change its thinking on security. Dr. Nerses Kopalyan, Dr. Anna Ohanyan and CNN senior media consultant James LeMay discuss potential approaches to augment Armenia’s security capabilities, mitigate nascent threats, and provide data-driven insights on the ongoing recalibrations in Armenia’s security environment.
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Panel Discussion: Recording Memory
The Recording Memory panel, featured representatives from StoryCorps, an organization renowned for showcasing the power of recording memories to foster empathy, understanding and inclusivity. The conversation explores the vital role of storytelling in preserving personal narratives and collective history.
Read moreExhibitions
Anatomy of a Protest
The oeuvre of photographer Avetik Hovhannisyan (1960-1988) is unknown to the wider public, yet Hovhannisyan’s first exhibition, curated by Vigen Galstyan for the EVN Media Festival, revealed the remarkable documentary significance of his tragically short-lived career. With the onset of “Perestroika” and the Karabakh Freedom Movement, the young photographer was on the streets of Yerevan everyday. His extensive archive consists of over a thousand negatives and prints depicting this tumultuous period in Soviet and Armenian history.
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Archive-mine
An homage to the rich, yet overlooked history of Armenian editorial illustrations, the “Archive-mine” exhibition, curated by Shamiram Khachatryan & EVN Report and on display during the EVN Media Festival this year, revealed works published in more than a dozen different Armenian periodicals in the last century, from Cairo to Istanbul, London to Tehran, Tbilisi and Yerevan. They are a testament to not only the role of the media to hold up a mirror to its readers but of the media’s innate predisposition to witness and relay its own times.
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