Arts & Culture

Many know Vava Sarkis as a muse and model for French Fauvists Henri Matisse and Raul Dufy. But few know that Vava was a successful artist in her own right, revered by many art connoisseurs around the world.

How can we tell an important story that has been forgotten? Arsinee Khanjian’s answer to this question has been to take the impact of the story, and make it inevitable. That is what the 2015 performance called Auction of Souls, which was again on stage at the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin this year, did.

Hayasdan (Armenia) is a graphic essay that explores the relationship between contemporary Yerevan and its past. The work, by Harut Tumaghyan and Armen of Armenia (Ohanyan), is divided into three parts, each delving into the city’s socio-political and cultural context from an urban perspective.

Historian Elyse Semerdjian’s book, Remnants: Embodied Archives of the Armenian Genocide, presents an innovative approach to writing history. She blends disciplines and challenging narratives to reveal the understudied female experience of the Armenian genocide.

A copy of an unpublished letter that Zabel Yesayan had written to Armenian-American artist Hovsep Pushman was recently discovered in the archives of literary scholar Arpik Avetisyan, the author’s grandmother. The letter reveals the depth of Yesayan’s introspection and emotionality and is presented here for the first time.

This is the story of Arev, a woman who survived a Soviet prison. In this new essay, Arev recounts her adventures traveling across the USSR in search of bottles and how she came to own a home in downtown Yerevan. As told by her niece Ella Kanegarian.

This is the story of Arev, a woman who “who always wears Chanel suits in Almodovar colors that she gets from who knows where, red lipstick, and high-heeled shoes” who survived a Soviet prison. As told by her niece Ella Kanegarian.

“A murderer could get amnesty, but not people like me. Bribery was considered the worst thing, although during Brezhnev's time bribery was everywhere, widespread and first of all in his own system…”

Although it was initially created to teach mathematical concepts 50 years ago, today, people have turned the Rubik’s Cube into a competitive sport called speedcubing. Armenia is now part of that world and holds several records.

Yerevan’s Christian heritage has usually been overshadowed because of its proximity to the Holy See of Ejmiatsin. The first accounts about churches in Yerevan are from records dating back to the Third Church Council of Dvin in 607 AD.