THIRTEEN - ACCEA

Art Residence for Artists at NPAK (May 24 – June 30)

Artist-in-run residence is a new project of the Armenian Center for Contemporary Experimental Art. NPAK/ACCEA offers young artists a space in the heart of Yerevan, where artists of different generations and contexts have worked and are working for almost 30 years. In addition to the implementation of projects (for the final exhibition), lectures, workshops and portfolio reviews are planned at the residence.
The first stream of NPAK STUDIOS provides residence for artists from Artsakh, Russia and Ukraine.
The program will enable artists to continue their artistic practice, despite the unstable realities of the world, will allow residents to be integrated into the local context and get acquainted with the contemporary artists of Armenia.
NPAK studios will be open throughout the project. Visitors will be able to watch the process, get acquainted with the artists, and also take part in open lectures. The purpose of the workshops is to gather a team of artists working in different media to jointly explore current realities and new forms of artistic activity.
Project curator – Bela Poghosyan

Artist – in – run residence is:
1. Workspace for artists, reading groups and lectures;
2. Educational program: workshops, artist talks, portfolio review;
3. Personal consultations with mentors;
4. Possibility to conduct your own master class or any other initiative agreed with NPAK during the residence project;
5. Expenses for materials and accommodation are not provided.

From the curator of Artist – in – run residence:

The split world requires the emergence of new forms of solidarity. The borders are open, the usual bureaucratic delays are forgotten. Weak and strong local ties are emerging, networks of community and mutual support for which a recipe has not yet been created, but which experience has been recorded. Completely new types of artistic associations emerge. For example, this residence. Throughout 30 years of its existence, ACCEA/NPAK, like other art institutions, turned to contemporary and experimental art. But if you try to figure out what these – certainly often repeated – words mean. Then it will become clear that “contemporary” is our challenges, and the “experimental” is the experience of mobility that we gain. For the artists arrived in Yerevan, the ACCEA/NPAK in this case, turns into a kind of “Cabaret Walter”, which during the First World War became a neutral point for refugee artists, where they spoke, interacted and created their new world. Now artists find themselves in some new situation, where any experience or experiment can become a serious statement or a decisive answer to questions that concern society.
For those on the “run”, this is an opportunity to temporarily become a citizen of another history, another reality, an island of security and a fragile world. Residences provide a point from which to start moving, a point to which you can direct your attention. ACCEA/NPAK creates a space where the truly cosmopolitan and democratic regimes of coexistence have the opportunity to take place or at least to be realized partially and to create new forms of cooperation between different cultures.
Artist-in-run residency is an attempt to fix the spontaneity of realities, to create a new system of coexistence during the period of movement and transformation, where it is possible to speak, reflect on own mistakes and create a new world around ourself.

Project curator, artist Bela Poghosyan

P.S. I thank art critic Ivan Streltsov for his assistance, help and joint reflections on the current situation

Final Exhibition

Artist – run – residence

July 6 – 6 august, 2022

Throughout a month, we worked with a group of artists on spontaneously created realities and thoughts, tried to understand the essence of migrations and gain mobility. During this period, many participants became citizens of a completely different history, witnesses of local processes and participants in the Armenian “present”, in which they did not plan to be.
Each of us chose the position that created the safest vacuum for ourselves, so choosing to be in a more distant position is also a choice, in this case. Everyone responds to the challenge of reality in their own way.

For the first few months, migrants do not consider themselves as migrants, just as refugees do not consider themselves as refugees. We coined the word “relocating” in order not to face reality, to maintain the state of affairs that was before. The location of living has changed, but what is the reason behind the desire to continue doing what one did: is it ensuring a stable existence or not admitting mistakes?

For 30 years, Armenian Center for Contemporary Experimental Art /NPAK/ has been a space for expressing not only the known and understandable, but also the experimental and transitional. The framework of NPAK, outlined in the 90s, is still relevant today.

Instability, split in societies and the world… It remains only to collect fragments in the ruins of meanings and perceptions, create new connections and navigate in spontaneity. In this case, NPAK has become a kind of shelter for the existence of marginal reflections and actions.

“Artist – run – residence”
Curator: Bela Poghosyan, 2022