Armenia–Diaspora 2026

“Armenia–Diaspora” Permanent Exhibition

This project, initiated by Sonia Balassanian, brings together contemporary artists from Armenia and the Armenian diaspora, creating a platform for dialogue and exchange.

“Context of memory”

The exhibition “Contexts of Memory” explores different forms of memory and the conditions under which they are formed and function: social, spatial, political, and cultural.

The works on display show that memory never exists in isolation. It is always embedded in specific contexts: the contexts of cities and architecture, migration and displacement, diasporic experience, collective trauma, and loss. Memory appears as a multifaceted and dynamic structure, whose mean-ings shift depending on place, time, and the perspective from which it is expressed.

The exhibition reflects various modes of memory. Contextual memory is understood as a collective experience, embedded in particular circumstances and events. Personal memory develops within these same contexts but is experienced as an individual, subjective perspective, not directly tied to external specifics. Some works engage with entirely non-contextual memory, arising at the level of perception and independent of events or narratives.

The interplay between the conscious and the unconscious reshapes our understanding of memory: it is no longer a fixed repository of the past, but a shifting, dynamic process. Memory does not emerge as a sum of recollections; rather, it exists as a field of tension between the individual and the collective, the contextual and the non-contextual. In this movement, memory manifests not as a given, but as an experience continually taking shape.

Curator: Bela Pogosian

Artists