In addition to our lineup of scheduled performances and workshops, this year’s festival will feature a range of storytelling activities and exhibits for you to experience throughout the weekend at your leisure!
🎧Listening Room:
Our Listening Room features a range of audio content - from poetry to podcasts, children’s literature to audio plays, in Eastern & Western Armenian, and in English. Bring your headphones (or use one of the headsets we’ll have on hand), sit down, tune in, and enjoy! Location to be announced.
🎨Tour of Abastan Artists’ Community:
Tumanyan town is home to one of Armenia’s most eclectic art spaces – Abastan, a community that welcomes artist-residents from around the world, set in an old Soviet textile factory. The residents of Abastan will conduct 30-minute tours of their unique home and studio space at the following times: Friday at 6pm, Saturday at 3:30pm, Sunday at 3pm. Meet at Factory Courtyard.
📍Tumanyan Town Audio Tour:
This self guided audio tour – available in English and Russian – was produced by the Abastan Research Team. Get to know the points of interest, secrets, legends, and complexities of Tumanyan Town! QR codes are posted around town, or find it here: https://tinyurl.com/tumanyantour
👗Safe Place Clothing Collection:
Abastan resident artist, Lizetta Eivaz, will showcase her collection, “Safe Place,” which explores the concept of home and the search for a feeling between freedom and comfort. Look out for models displaying Lizetta’s thought-provoking pieces throughout the festival!
🎤USC My Armenian Story:
We’re pleased to welcome the USC Institute of Armenian Studies to the festival! Check out the audio-visual testimonies from My Armenian Story, the Institute’s oral history project. Associate Director Silva Sevlian will also be on hand to record interviews with festival attendees! Location to be announced
📖Visualizing Armenian Poetry with TUMO:
Check out this fascinating exhibit that students at the TUMO Center for Creative Technologies developed with Iranian graphic designer Reza Abedini. After exploring a wide range of Western Armenian poetry, students created installations inspired by the texts. Location: Factory Building (upstairs)
🖼️ Small Stories:
We’re displaying a selection of Raffi Ouzounian’s “Small Stories” – a collection of photos and anecdotes about life in Armenia, the interesting people he comes across and the sometimes comical, sometimes inspiring scenarios they face. Location: Factory Building (upstairs)