Curators: Silvina Der-Meguerditchian | Reet VarblaneCity Gallery - Tallinn - Estonia

virtual • real • in between

t h i s P L A C E d

Tallinn 12/02 - 01/03 2009

Introduction

Silvina Der-Meguerditchian | 06

Reet Varblane | 56

Estela Schindel | 58

Virtual

visual collages with blog material | 09

Real

Face to Face meeting in Berlin | 33

Exhibition & Artists

Achot Achot | 37

Emily Artinian | 39

Silvina Der-Meguerditchian | 41

Archi Galentz | 43

Olga Jürgenson | 45

Eléonore de Montesquiou | 47

In Between

with texts by

Christopher Atamian | 51

Archi Galentz | 55

Silvina Der-Meguerditchian | 57

Achot Achot | 59

Curricula vitae | 60

Contents

5

As a result of a long historyof displacement, the Armenian identityis a good example of an “early globalizednation”1. The exhibition thisPLACEdreal • virtual • in between in Tallinn aimsto show this transnational and hybrididentity model and to juxtapose it with thearising understanding of Estonians ina post-Soviet framework “on the way” tobecoming a full member of the EuropeanUnion.The Armenia related artists of the platformunder_construction invited Estonia relatedartists to participate in an open process,a visual-virtual dialog using a blog formatas an artistic tool for exchange (fromJanuary to December 2008) with the goal ofdeveloping an exhibition in Tallinn. In theprocess they were exploring the boundariesof the blog format and challengingthemselves in a real context to create anexhibition together in an engaging way.Several blogs became the virtual“territory” where the artists approachedeach other and shared experiences andobservations in image, word and sound.

Since 2006 under_construction has grownand pins its structure on virtual visualdialogues followed by real dialogues in theform of exhibitions2, symposiums andmeetings. The platform, a landscape ofindependent artists, coordinated by anartist acting as a curator, was perhaps notimmediately “attractive” for acollaboration in terms of contemporary artcriteria, and therefore it was a challengeto find Estonian partners to participate inthis open process. Offering primarily amental and virtual space of artisticexchange, the difficulty was to develop anexhibition in an institutional space thatwould be relevant for a local audience.To reinforce the virtual relationship andthe process orientated aspect of thisArmenian/Estonian temporary “community”,the attempt to achieve a dialogue amongstthe diverse group was supported through areal experience: the meeting “Face to Face”in Berlin (May 2008). The diverseparticipants in the blogs, all of whom liveoutside their homeland and have hybridbackgrounds, include Achot Achot(Yerevan/Paris), Emily Artinian(London/Pennsylvania), Archi Galentz(Moscow/Berlin), Tanya Kaprielian (London),Sophia Gasparian (Los Angeles), DahliaElsayed (New Jersey), Andrew Demirjian (NewJersey), Aram Jibilian (New York), HrayrEulmessekian (Los Angeles), Eléonore deMontesquiou (Paris/Berlin/Tallinn), OlgaJürgenson (Tallinn/London) and Silvina Der-Meguerditchian (Buenos Aires/Berlin).

Introduction

Silvina Der-Meguerditchian

IMy first visit to Estonia was atthe invitation of Sirje Helme,to participate in the exhibition“Other neighbourhood” (2004). Iwas astonished at how warmly Iwas welcomed as an artist: the“periferia” was able toappreciate a periferal artist,offering very high standards ofhospitality and showing suchcuriosity - I thought: howrefreshing, a “new country” witha view that is not dazzled onlyby big names and golden frames.This perception encouraged me tolook for partners and continueto work in this corner of theworld. In the last 4 years this‘love at first sight’ has becomea mature relationship anddeveloped into a concreteproject: thisPLACEd.

IIThe platform ‘under_construction’turns on the notion of “Inbetweeness” in a very consequentway: I as the initiator havemoved between the roles ofartist, coordinator and curatorand have confronted thecontradictions that appear whenone acts in both fieldssimultaneously. This is theessential spirit of thislandscape.

Face to Face” took place with theparticipation of the Europe based artists,the curator Reet Varblane (Tallinn) and wasmoderated by the sociologist EstelaSchindel. The overseas artists were invitedto take part through Skype. The discussionturned around the potential for an identitybeyond defined national borders, traditionand language. The consensus amongstparticipants was to focus on the positivethings that displacement brings to theindividual: its influence on everyday life,thoughts and choices. With its realizationthe exhibition answers some of theproject’s big challenges: can virtual spacelegitimate itself as a sustainablesettlement and give confidence to its“inhabitants”? How meaningful is it to havetrue dialog partners spread around theworld and is it possible to develop commongoals and real, qualitative communication,especially today?

This catalog is divided into 3 parts:virtual, real and in between.Virtual shows content from the blogsreinterpreted specially for the catalog byeach artist-participant. Real documents the“Face to Face” meeting and the “thisPLACEd”exhibition. The art on display in the CityGallery shows interstitial positionswithout rose-colored glasses: Elénore deMontesquiou’s video work “Chorum” picks onemoment of harmony, speaking against thecacophony that one might expect hearing asong sung in different languages. ArchiGalentz’s installation confronts anotherkind of successful cooperation beyondfrontiers: a series of hand tailored suitsmade in different countries allows him tobuild a very individual image of a partisanthat moves in the spheres inside out of thecontemporary art context. Questioning theinfluence of legacy and real geography,Emily Artinian’s “Dead Dad” installation,including photo and book work, deconstructsthe notion of ownership and the heritageof land/property. Olga Jürgenson alsoquestions legacy, but the legacy ofnational pride: Yuri Gagarin, the first manin space, became the hero of a Sovietnation, the “conqueror of sidereal space”.With her multipart installation consistingof stenciled wallpaper, objects and video,she positions herself in the poetical spaceof childhood and approaches the “alien”with a critical sense of humor. Achot Achotdeals with the “alien’s” wounds and thehealing potential of art. His video workshows healing as a meditative and quietprocess only influenced by time. Finally mywork explores the spaces between “place”and the “individual”, deconstructing word

in image visually, where enthusiasmprevails over feelings of despair.

In between is made up of textualreflections. The artists Achot Achot andArchi Galentz write from a personal level:Achot’s text “Mimikria” explores thisphenomenon from the opposite point of view,here it is not the individual who adaptshis color or behavior to become part of acontext, a context which tries to take overthe individual. “Say it loud… displaced andproud” by Galentz is an open letterquestioning possible future strategies ofthe platform under_construction and achingfor the discussion about criteria beyondthe contemporary art discourse for thefurther development of the landscape.Christopher Atamian’s text presents histranslation of Nigoghos Sarafian’s “Bois deVincennes”, one of the most important textsfrom the Armenian Diaspora post Genocide.The essence of this text turns aroundidentity in the Diaspora.

Following this introduction the sociologistand writer Estela Schindel advocates forthe joyful search of emancipated partners,while the curator Reet Varblane gives us anoverview shared by the Armenian andEstonian art scenes, underlining howinteresting it can be to aproach a “netsystem” from the margins.

1) Ashot Voskanian, in “D’Arménie”: “The Armenianindividual and his virtual society”,Le Quartier, Quimper, 2007

2) See catalogue of the exhibitionUnderconstruction: Visual dialogueTalking about identities in the ArmenianTransnation, Venice, 2007

7

We need flexible networks but we do notwant to be spidersWhen Silvina Der-Meguerditchian visitedTallinn in December 2007 to speak about thenext ”Under_construction” exhibition inTallinn, my first idea was to organizesomething together: to add Estonian artiststo this Armenian group and to create adialogue in our artspace. And not only anArmenian-Estonian dialogue, but followingthe „Under_construction” model, a dialogueof “foreign” Armenian artists and“foreign” Estonian artists.

But from here we came to the firstquestion: what does it mean to be a foreignEstonian artist? Who are these artists wholive and work in the exile? How to definethe foreign Estonian?

When talking about foreign Estonianartists, writers, composers, etc. in theEstonian context, one often means culturalpeople who left (or were made to leave)Estonia in 1944 when it became clear thatEstonia would be occupied (again) by theSoviet Union. We even have an extended,state-financed programme for studing thisforeign culture. Mostly these people beganto work in the cultural scene already inEstonia and then continued mostly insidetheir new Estonian community, in the innercircle – in the Estonian Houses or in thegalleries which were meant mostly forforeign Estonian people. They wereinterested in their identity – especiallyin how to define themselves inside aforeign country, culture and language – butin their cultural action they carried on inthe same aesthetic way as they did inEstonia, or else tried to joininternational art tendencies, or topreserve something that could be defined asEstonian (Estonian national signs, costums,customs, the country-side way of life) butwhich has nothing to do with the real,actual identity of these people inside theforeign situation and environment.

The next generation who were born in thenew homeland were not too interested inEstonia, especially during the period ofoccupation. Later, especially in the verybeginning of the 1990s, the younggeneration was quite eager to discovertheir parents’ homeland, their roots, but

this remained mostly a ‘one-night stand’.Their home (language, friends,comprehensions) was somewhere else.And, is there any sense at all in talkingabout national culture in the narrowersense in the context of the contemporary,postmodernist culture? It seems a relic,especially in the context of bigmetropolis, multi-cultural Westerncountries, “post-societies” (post-colonial,post-national).

However, all people, everywhere, alwaysface the problem of identity – who are we?Where do we belong? Do we belong anywhere?From where have we come? Where and which ismy own place? Do we have any place or weare displaced? Dislanguaged? And doesnationality have any importance, anymeaning among the character references? Whoare we if we have been born in England, ourparents’ nationality is Estonian, we happento live in Argentina, our home language(our children’s language) is Spanish butmost of our friends speak English and weknow barely a few words in our ancestrallanguage? Or if we have been born inEstonia in a Ukranian family whose homelanguage is Russian but we happen to livein Germany and our everyday languages areequally German and English? Whichcharacteristics then have the mostsignificance?

Since the collapse of the totalitariansystem of the Soviet Union in the beginningof the 1990s it has been really easy tochange ones place of residence (andlanguage in accordance to the new place orto the rules of international linguisticperformance). Does this mean the change ofculture? Identity? Where is the border wecould not cross in order to preserveourselves, to not get lost?

In light of these questions I and SilvinaDer-Meguerditchian, group leader andcurator of the „Under_construction”project, decided to shift to theperspective, and to solicit proposals fromEstonian artists who either (1) live inEstonia but have more complicatedbackgrounds (in a national or liguisticsense, or in both); or (2) have an Estonianidentity (in a national and in a linguisticsense) but happen to live somewhere elseand because of that have changed somethingin their identity (or share differentidentities) or, (3) even if they do nothave Estonian identity in the national orlanguage sense, they have dealt with andbeen interested in Estonian identity – ormore precisely, in the potential identitiesin Estonia.

Reet Varblane

In the first selection there were MareTralla and Olga Jürgenson who have Estonianbackgrounds but who both live in UnitedKingdom. However their backgrounds areslightly different: Mare Tralla has grownup completely in the Estonian culturalenvironment – in the national and in thelinguistic sense, whereas Olga Jürgensonhas grown up in the Russian culturalenvironment (in the Russian languagecontext). And Eleonore de Montesquiou whois by the background French but who hasbeen connected with Estonia because of herRussian grandmother who happens to live inEstonia, and who has had great interest inhow to define the identity of people whohappen to be engaged with Estonia. AndTanja Muravskaja who is Ukrainian bynationality, whose first language isRussian but who acts in the Estoniancultural space. And Kristina Norman who hasmixed nationality, whose early educationwas in in a Russian language based schooland who acts in the Estonian culturalscene. However, all of these artists act inthe international art scene. For one oranother reason in the current exhibition atthe Tallinn City Gallery there are only twoartists from the Estonian side – OlgaJürgenson and Eleonore de Montesquiou. Butthey are absolutely perfect partners inthis Armenian – Estonian dialogue.

Estonia and Armenia have had a longconnection, cooperation, and understandingof each other. I remember that we Estoniansenvied Armenians for their excellentrelationship with their diaspora. Evenmore, foreign Amenians supported occupiedArmenia not only through relatives orfriends but also on a public, culturallevel. The first contemporary art museum inthe Soviet Union was founded in the capitalof Armenia. And it happend with the help ofthe foreign Armenian community.

I’d like to remember one incident involvingthe cooperation of Armenian and Estonianartists and curators. At the end of the1970s curators from the Tartu Art Museumand the Armenian Contemporary Art Museummounted an exhibition of contemporaryArmenian art at the Tartu Art Museum. Itwas really progressive in that context,mostly abstract paintings. As these twomuseums had very good connections then theymade a joint decision to continue theexhibition and as the Tartu Art Museum hadgood connections with Lithuania, Kaunas,the exhibition was taken there. But duringinstallation, authorities from the MoscowCommunist Party happened to visit. Whenthey saw the exhibition, they wereconfused: both because it was abstract work

and also because Estonian art curators werebehind the exhibition. And when one ofthe authorities attacked the art, sayingthat it did not mean anything, that it wastrash, then my good colleague – anexcellent art historian, and friend ofArmenia – protected the Armenian artists’works, saying that it was not the artist’smistake but the uneducated receiver’s one.This case caused a big scandal: thedirector of the Tartu Art Museum waspunished by the cultural ministryauthorities. And not because of the honestand maybe a little bit arrogant answer, butbecause two small nations (both occupied)collaborated by themselves, made their ownchoices and, what was even worse, their ownnetwork. And they advanced their identityby this network.

Ten years ago, in December 1998, a groupfrom the Estonian Art Academy studyingapplied aesthetics and the semiotics of artinitiated a seminar „Place and Location”.The aim of the seminar was to study man’srelationship with the environment,proceeding from the practice ofsignification: how does man define andsignify his surroundings, and what is therole of language in these processes. In herstudy „The Road that Takes and Points” KaiaLehari, one of the founders of this groupand seminars, writes about roads and lineswhich „continously and vigorously shapeman’s world”: „A strong and flexible netenables one to move in each direction,starting from the centre. From here it ispossible to rule over information happeningin the net. A spider rules the area overwhich it has woven its net. The idea is tobind the prey, deprive it of freedom andget it entangled since it is not able tofind its way among the net of stickythreads, as it is poisoned and totallyconfused. The ambient network embodies asociety: the denser and wider the net, theeasier it is to manipulate the victim. Thenet embodies power that can even catch thespirit in its net and increase injustice.”But this is only one way to understand thenet-system: another is to start not fromthe centre but from the border, uniting thesmall outside points.

It is just what „Under_construction” andnow ”thisPLACEd” does.

9

Since 2005 artists from different Armenianbackgrounds have been meeting andexchanging visual impressions througha virtual platform, which latterly hasdeveloped into a blog. Inspired by thatexperience, a series of Estonian artistswere invited to join and expandthe dialogue in this virtual space.Subsequently, some of them gatheredtogether in order to think collectivelyabout this process and a possible outcometo be shown.

The artists of the original group havebeen interrogating and deconstructing intheir work the established notions ofnation and identity as monolithicallyfixed. They commit to Armenia in ways thatgo beyond the idea of a nation beinggeographically or genetically defined. Inso doing, they explore new languages andmeans for recreating this heritage andshaping new imaginary landscapes. Thoseborn under the Soviet block experienced thedisintegration of the USSR as a source ofinstability which deepened a certain senseof lack and loss. Those coming from theDiaspora tended to rebel against thesupremacy of an identity based in terms ofthe tension between home and periphery andto enjoy instead the richness andopportunities posed by multilingualism andcultural diversity. In what Archi Galentzaccurately characterizes as a subtle,meditative approach, their work oftenevokes a sense of being out of place. Nota sense of being displaced as theirgrandparents, who suffered persecution andexile, experienced, but a positiveunderstanding of their nomadic search. Thegenocide and the persistence of memory donot emerge in apparent, visually explicitmanners, but as a certain form of absenceand longing. It is not the historicalfacts or the political interpretationswhich are deployed, but rather the silentlegacy of an erased presence. Diasporicexperience and territorial homeland areassumed as productive poles in a fertiledialogue. Identity becomes rhizomatic,multiple, dynamic and constantly recreated.

When the Estonia related artists wereinvited to join the blog and to discuss inBerlin possibilities for a commondevelopment many questions arose. Whatexactly is this gathering of these Armenianrelated artists? And what is the purposeof inviting Estonians to work with them?Why should they create something together?What result could come out of thisexchange and how – if at all – should itbe shown?

Estela Schindel

Be-longing:Imaginary landscapesfor a post-national world

While the search for responses to thesequestions opened a still ongoing discussionprocess, some latent answers are to befound in the artworks themselves. Manyunderlying affinities can be detectedcrossing through these and other Europeanperipheries. From another margin of theWestern dream, the work of the Estonianartists addresses issues such ascitizenship, nationalities, borders andmigration. The edges and cities of Europeappear as places where belonging andintegration are negotiated, the commonmarket territory is portrayed as one markedby traces of destruction as much as by thepromises of capitalism.

While a visual dialogue took place on thevirtual surface of the blog, allowingmutual approaches and perplexities tofollow their own pace, the juxtaposing ofparticipants’ artwork offers by itself aconstellation of concerns around relatedthemes. Beyond the hazard of affinities andthe circumstances of historical parallels,such as the experience of war or thedisintegration of the Soviet regime,biographical and artistic itinerariesperform a constant displacement of therigid borders of what is thought of as “thenational”.

The re-creation of territories andlandscapes operates as a permanent,mobilizing principle. Windows, doors,bridges and thresholds speak to thecrossing through of countries andlanguages. Texts, maps and legaldocumentation are revisited and employed asmeans of representation. Testimonies andmeditations allow intimate ways of relatingto memories, families and homelands, whilemartyrs and fallen heroes speak for a senseof broken, incomplete national narratives.The healing gesture and hospitality aredepicted as messages carrying hope. Newapproaches to legacy and filiations reshapetradition in alternative ways. The adaptivemechanisms of foreigners are regarded alsowith an estranged distance: assimilationand cultural resistance are both perceivedas futile since the labelling into fixedidentities is naught but an externalrequest. As Audre Lorde put it, it is notabout being different but about inhabitingthe very house of difference.

This plural, heterogeneous, multilayeredcartography of strangeness can also be readin the spirit of what Deleuze and Guattari,inspired by Kafka, named a “minorliterature”: one whose subversive potentialis precisely being written from the marginsand deterritorializing one terrain as it

maps another. It is speaking from theborder where other possible communitiescan be expressed and another sensibilitycan be forged. For these Frenchphilosophers, writing in major languagesfrom a marginalized or minoritarianposition allows for linking the subject tothe political, the individual to thecollective, and erases the major discoursesin the manner of a joyful stranger (theyeven contradict all canonical hermeneuticsby posing that Kafka laughs!).

From the porous borders of the academicsystem concepts such as borderlandtheorizing, intra-peripherical approaches,hybrid methods and cross-differencesalliances are being developed and exploredin order to refer to this challenging andquestioning of given boundaries. Being outof place, displaced, in geographical andsymbolic senses, becomes an affirmativeoption for eluding the establishedcategories which organize the productionand circulation of art and knowledge interms defined from the centre.

The search is not for a harbour of identitybut for allies in the unshelteredcelebration of an emancipated flowing. Notbelonging, along with the tranquilizingeffect any identifying mechanism wouldimply, but a perpetual longing anddesiring, as a mobilizing, joyful vitalforce.

11

Virtual

13

Achot Achot

Dear all,I’m writing you to tell about our blogproject and the exhibition project inTallinn. The exhibition in Tallinn willtake place in February 2008. Thecitygallery of Tallinn is very wellsituated and has good atmosphäre.A catalog will be printed. Thedimensions will be 17 cm wide x 24 cm.

In this catalogue I would like todocument/ make visible the ties(strong/less strong/ fragile) that wehave build in the blog. In the Face toFace, we said as metaphor that the blogwas a kind of experimental kitchen, theimages are ingredients. I ask you now tocook one „visual dish“ with this visualingredients using images, words, textsthat appear in the blog. Each artistwill have a double page presenting hisown view of this blog experience,underlining in a visual way the aspectthat she/he likes more putting images,or issues, or part of a visual dialogue,or making an intervention… etc.

The deadline is a bit short, I know, Iwill need all this material till 18.December (3 weeks), but please take inconsideration that I am a one (wo)manshow and it was impossible for me totake care of this earlear. Please try tosend the material in the way I asked, itwill help me a lot and it will avoidthat I loose time. If anybody of you hasno time to prepare this „visual dishes“or not interest, tell me asap, so that Ican plan other material in the freepages (2 pages for personal presentationand 2 pages for blog dialog for eachartist).

KissSilvina

Blogs

From: "silvina_der@t-online.de"Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2008 12:50:27 +0100To: archi galentz , emiliy Artinian, Sophia Gasparian, achot achot,Dahlia Elsayed, Eléonore de Montesquieu, Olga Jurgenson, HrayrEulmessekian, Aram Jibilian, aram jibilian, Hrayr Eulmessekian,Tanya Kaprielian, Andrew DemirjianCc: Reet ValblaneSubject: Underconstruction, Project ThisPLACEd in Tallinn Estonia

Emily Artinian

Olga Jürgenson

Archi Galentz - Sophia Gasparian

Silvina Der-Meguerditchian

Tanya Kaprielian

Eléonore de Montesquiou

15

perspective, Achot Achot

17

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19

They have seemed to betogether, though absent;shook hands as over a vast;and embraced as it were fromthe ends of opposed winds.Shakespeare, A Winter’s Tale

perspective, Emily Artinian

Monday, April 14, 2008Posted by o.jürgenson at 2:10 PM

Integration /or rather 'Cohesion' in the UK/ in action:I got this box with 2 different sorts of hot (meaning-temperature) rice dishes in the night before Good Friday, whenpopped out for some milk to a local shop. An Asian lady gave them out to passing by people, getting them from hercar boot and insisted I would stop and accept it. I thanked her, of course, automatically assumed: well, yes, it'sEaster. Than thought: not sure there is a connection between the christian Easter and Asian (most likely: Pakistani,the majority of whom are muslims) holidays. Went back to ask the lady what was the reason for giving out the food,but she had disappeared already. Than decided to google my question: so, it was Mawlid-al-Nabi (Muhammad'sBirthday) that thursday /On the photo the food is frozen, and unfortunately i'd ruined the relief before putting it into thefreezer - was curious to do a research on the ingredients.

Saturday, April 19, 2008posted by Silvina at02:03 AM

po sted by Silvi na as diashowFe bruary 2008af raid of red snow ????

Friday, 29 August 2008posted by Archi Galentz at 12:28 AM

Cohesion (chemistry): the intermolecular attraction between like-molecules.Cohesion (social policy): the bonds or "glue" between members of a community or society.

Cohesion (linguistics): the linguistic elements that make a discourse semantically coherent.Cohesion (structural): the sociological and graph theoretical conception and measurementfor maximal group or graphical boundaries where related elements cannot be disconnected

except by removal of a certain minimal number of other nodes.

nnoott rreedd nnoott oorraannggee

perspective, Silvina Der-Meguerditchian

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perspective, Archi Galentz & Sophia Gasparian

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perspective, Tanya Kaprielian

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perspective, Olga Jürgenson

perspective, Eléonore de Montesquiou

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tteecchhnniiccaall ddrraawwiinngg:: TTaaaavvii TTuulleevv

Real

Face to Face meeting | BerlinExhibition City Gallery | Tallinn

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EmilyEléonore

Olga

Reet

Achot

May 10, 2008.Reply-To: Estela

To: “silvina Der-Meguerditchian”, "emiliy Artinian","archi galentz", "achot achot",“reet”, “Eleanor Montesquiou”,

“O Jürgenson”, <info@tanjamuravskaja.com>Subject: Face to face in Berlin

Hello everyone

I’m glad of having shared this thinking process with you!

Here’s a list of keywords from the day to think about.

I will send other feedback too.

xxx Estela

(Non) citizenship. Nationality.

Armenia not as “geography”, not “genetically”:

As inheritance. As erasure. Presence erased.

Margin. Edge.The individual and the general/collective.

Commonalities.Being where, being out of place, displaced.

Belonging (home-house).Imaginary landscapes.

War. Destruction.Borders (doors and windows).

Migration. Hospitality.Social pressure to define oneself.

Identities as result of this external pressure(not of an inner process).

Art as healing.Meditative art.

Hero-victim-martyr.Monologue/diary > conversation.

Commonalities.Being where/out of place.

Cooperation. Ways out of the system.

The look of other artists.

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Estela

Archi

Silvina

Face to Face

Emily Artinian

Archi Galentz

Achot Achot

Olga Jürgenson

Silvina Der-Meguerditchian

Eléonore de Montesquiou

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Exhibition in TallinnArtists

Achot Achot

Many references might come to mind in front of this bride stripped bare andprogressively buried under a snowfall of cotton, but they disappear at once to let theimage take place: here the content is about image much more than it is about a story.There is no portrait of, nor feelings in, the pictorial character who hardly takes partin the narrative, a narrative that is reduced to a gradual linear development of image,in a progressive logic whose entire density is contained in the smallest casualoccurrence. The impassive and almost fixed characters of Achot Achot's videos areabsorbed in their own inner life, detached from what is happening on stage. This breakin expected communication is amplified here by the absence of the original gesture thatanimates the falling cotton flakes. Only the result of this off-screen gesture is madevisible. As often in Achot Achot's photographic work, a subtle game sets a tensionbetween a latent violence and a healing smoothness, as from grace fallen from above.The slow rhythm of the fall, echoed by the character’s slight breathing, contributesto the pictoriality of the scene. The centering results in a flatness of image, whichpresents nevertheless a rich geography of hollows and masses. Even if at first sightthis video seems far from the meditative abstraction of the artist, it shares with hispaintings the denial of narrative. If there is a narrative, it is based on repetitionor on a spiral expansion, where the simpler gesture tends to infinity.

Choghakate Kazarian

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AFACTUM, videowork, 25:57 min, 2008

Emily Artinian

Emily Artinian recently became executor for and also one of the heirs of her deceasedfather’s estate. If inheritance can be reduced to precisely described objects (as legaland economic structures tend to emphasize), one would say that this consists of realestate and property investment companies. For thisPLACEd, in her new, compound role asartist and executor/property owner, Emily considers the more opaque aspects ofinheritance. Having lived far from the estate’s location in Pennsylvania since she wasan adolescent, she investigates her own relationship to this land and people. She takesthe name Poppy Engels, a heteronym encoding her uncertainty about her father’s drivefor extensive ownership of property, something she often questioned him about in hislifetime. One strong sense – speculative, but insistent – is that this obsession wasnot unconnected to his own parents’ loss of home, and homeland, when they were displacedto the United States as refugees. Dead Dad presents portraits of this property in aseries of photographs. An accompanying artists book reprises and re-sites thephotographs, and, incorporating discussions Emily and her father shared before he died,adds textual meditations on the intricate legacy of inheritance and the complexemotions and responsibilities embedded in ancestral history.

DEAD DAD (do the right thing)Artist’s book; 8 digital Lamda C-prints, 600mm x 400mm, on aluminium mounts

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Silvina Der-Meguerditchian

In semantic fields artist Silvina Der-Meguerditchian explores the space between theimage and the written word, naming it, celebrating it, dissecting it into its smallestcomponents. Paper - the primary support of the written word - is punctured by themateriality of wool or sewing thread. The words “she”, “her”, “him”, “you”, “place” aredeconstructed in a thicket of fibers, becoming an enigma difficult to decipher. This“woolly encoding” with its soft, porous surface, speaks to the osmotic properties oflanguage and the permeable limits between ideas and their signifiers.

ThisPLACEd & DU (you)Installation on the wall, wool, nautic yarn, size adaptable

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To match the light grey jacket, several pairs of trousers inslightly darker shades were ordered for the price of $10 each.Being not exactly tall in comparison to the average WesternEuropean Male, I chose those colours in order to provide acertain impression of slenderness. The tie and handkerchiefwere a farewell present from a guest from Russia and were aproduct from a Berlin start-up,"CFK-Design", and came in arather fancy packaging, and was bought for just €20 on thedesign markets behind the Berlin Zeughaus. The rings were madeby the Armenian goldsmith, Robert Jesayan after my own design.Value of materials: $100. Work was rewarded by work.

Archi Galentz

«The real miracle is not to walk over water, or to fly through the sky, butjust to walk on earth.» a Chan proverb

«Usta-forms»2004: I wondered if it could be possible to develop an artistic position todaywithout the unbearable attitude and disgusting language of pseudoavantgardistic pathos. I also realized that the most important decisions incontemporary art are not made in studios and ateliers, but in bureaus bypeople who stay in the background and wear grey suits. My first hand tailored black suit was made in 1999 by a Yerevan based «usta» which in the Orient isthe widespread name for a craftsmen. Later I started to take part ininternational exhibitions on the periphery of Europe, such as Macedonia,Serbia, Armenia and Russia. It is a very creative process developing anexiting experience trying on hand tailored clothing. Two weeks are enough for a complete suit and 2 days for a pair of trousers made by local masters for a very reasonable price. A complete suit sometimes costs less than a pair of trendy jeans. 2006: I decided to exhibit the clothing as artworks and theimages of an artist wearing them as a proposal for new uniforms or «usta-forms» of a new artistic order. It is not only about looking different orbetter, but about confidence, there is no way, other than taking the placeof those who manipulate us. Maybe it is an attempt to move away, excludeoneself from contemporary art discourse, because it is not about exploitationof an actual moment and claiming the right to personify this thesis, but the creativity of interaction with a real, and not symbolic economy.

USTA-FORMSArtist’s suits, poster and digital images, size adaptable

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Olga Jürgenson

SPACE ODDITYIn 1957 Sputnik beat the United States in the Space Race and stunned peopleall over the world. Gagarin became the first human to travel into space andreturn in 1961, and after the flight he became a worldwide celebrity, touringwidely to promote this Soviet achievement. As a child, growing up in the USSR,I was proud to be a citizen of the country, which first managed to send aman into Space. The space discoveries of the 1970s created a growing senseof marvel about the universe, and that was reflected in the numerous sciencefiction books and films in both the East and West. We, the young readers andviewers naively believed that anyone from planet Earth would be able to travelinto Space by the year 2000 at the latest. In 1991 the Soviet Union fell apartand my native country Estonia became independent. Every human being of acertain age in the country had to give up his or her Soviet passport, but noteverybody was considered to qualify for Estonian citizenship, therefore theEstonian government decided to issue those other people with certificates ofidentity, which are called Alien’s Passports. Thousands of people becameAliens in the country they were born in and /or spent most of their lives in. For the thisPLACEd exhibition I developed an installation, which is my commenton the over-romanticized theme of humans in Space, and our (Soviet) SpaceLeadership related patriotism. It also reflects my interpretation of themeaning of the term ‘aliens’, thus questioning the issue of belonging andintegration in the context of the current social and political situation inEstonia. One of the aspects of my installation is a series of paintings andworks on paper, for which I used rollers, sprays, stencils and other media.Another major aspect of the installation is a 3D object, which is referentto a flying saucer. One of the port holes will be used for displaying videofilm/s by Eleonore de Montesquiou, an artist who frequently interviewsdisadvantaged Alien Citizens in Estonia for her video works.

SPACE ODDITYInstallation, roller stencil and spray on paper, 3 D object, size adaptable

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Eléonore de Montesquiou

My proposal for this exhibition consists of a film and of an image, whichcan both be read as pieces of a puzzle to build a symbolic bridge betweenpast and present, and between the two communities living in Estonia: Russiansand Estonians. Since 2005, I have been working in Estonia with the Russiancommunity questioning the notions of citizenship, integration and identity,language and culture, dealing with the border and work situations. I am tryingto understand my presence in Estonia: my family had been living between SaintPetersburg, Narva and Tallinn for a long period, they were Russian and fledfrom Russia to Estonia during the Russian revolution. I now have Estoniancitizenship though I was born and grew up in France.

KAAR (the arch)There are still numbers of playgrounds for children in Estonia, as in Russia,with geometric shapes. I chose one of these forms: a half-circle anchored inthe ground to its diameter, on which children can climb. I asked an architectto draw this element as though I was intending to build anew this type ofstructure. This playground structure is a bridge, an anachronic propositionas such, it links past and present in post-Soviet countries: the playgroundsare now replaced by installations matching E.U. norms.

KOOR (chorus)In Ida Virumaa, the North-East of Estonia, close to the Russian border, themajority of people are Russian speakers. Depending on their projects, whetherto stay in Estonia, move to Russia or to Western Europe, the young peoplemay decide to learn Estonian or English. In my short film, the threelanguages, Russian, English and Estonian are used as one by a church choir,as in a rare moment of peaceful symbiosis.

KOOR (film) 2006 - 04:40 - Colour - Sound: Russian/English/Estonian singing

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Technical drawing by Taavi Tulev - Print on paper. Size: variable

In Between

with texts byChristopher AtamianNigoghos SarafianArchi GalentzSilvina Der-MeguerditchianAchot Achot

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I am indebted to Marc Nichanian and KrikorBeledian for many of the ideas presented below.The title of my text is a reworking of MarcNichanian's introduction to Anahide Drezian'sFrench translation of "The Bois de Vincennes"entitled "Sarafian or the Conquest of Exile".

“Sarafian’s “Bois de Vincennes” or theLanguage of Exile“Who am I?” Nigoghos Sarafian asksrepeatedly in one form or anotherin his seminal text The Bois de Vincennes.This most basic ontological question liesat the heart of much of Sarafian’s 1947masterpiece of Western Armenian literature.Sarafian lived the difficult life of anexile. Exile is never easy: it involves not just physical dislocation but also the complete reordering of one’s world bothphysically and intellectually. For Sarafianand the other Armenian intellectuals who regrouped in Paris after the horrors of the Aghet or Armenian Genocide and werebriefly associated under the aegis of the “Menk” (Armenian for “We”) Group,exile was particularly bitter andunsettling.

The reasons for this are complexand particular to the Armenian Diasporaand to its formation. As Marc Nichanian has pointed out in his introduction to the French-language translation of The Boisde Vincennes, Sarafian was not only a stranger in a new land, but a stranger tohis own Western Armenian culture as well.Unlike other thinkers and writers,diasporan Armenians possess no otherconcrete world to refer to, no land thatthey can exoticize and idealize. WesternArmenia, for centuries under foreigndomination, offered little forintellectuals such as Sarafian to grab ontoor react against: today it lies devastated,a land laid waste by the Ottoman Turks’most brutal will to annihilation.Furthermore, even as far back as mid-century when Sarafian wrote his seminaltext, Western Armenian had begun to loseits ability to serve as a literary languagefor these writers. Sarafian explains in TheBois de Vincennes that when he wrote in Armenian, he did so in a language thathad already become foreign to him. InFrance, in a French school located in a French village, the young Sarafianlearned to write and read all over again ina new tongue. As a result of this, hebecame a foreigner to himself, doublydisplaced and unable to completely recoverhis mother tongue. As Nichanian writes,this is also what makes Sarafian

particularly difficult to translate: the absence of a natural language or worldfrom which to translate. How then to write in a language that one has already lostone’s natural relation to? And when thatlanguage has also begun to lose itselfwithin the minds of one’s contemporaries—the other members of the Armeniandiaspora— how to write in a language thatis doubly invisible, in this case both tomembers of one’s host nation and to one’sfellow exiles? Not easy questions to answer.

Thus the many oppositions that stalkedSarafian throughout his life and which hementions on several occasions in The Boisde Vincennes: between the intellectual andthe worker; between the native and theexile; between cosmopolitanism andnationalism. These oppositions led to a crippling self-doubt in Sarafian, to feeling as he notes in the excerpt thatfollows, of being ashamed of even walkinginto an Armenian church or reading theNarek, the livre de chevet of his fatherand of Armenians in general for well overten centuries. This doubt, this senseof being alien to oneself, is perhapsa natural human tendency but it is feltin a particularly acute manner by diasporanArmenians. It is perhaps our definingcharacteristic: to feel alien both to ournative cultures and to ourselves. Anyonereading these lines must admit that it isa formidable existential and intellectualposition to find oneself in. The challengethat such a position offers is daunting:how to re-conquer our language and culture,how to re-naturalize it so that we become“natural” once again not just to the landswe find ourselves dispersed in, but toourselves as well. The conquering of the self, the overcoming of doubt: noteasy tasks for the writer to accomplish.

I: N.B.: The Bois de Vincennes was published in1942 in Aleppo, Syria. It was written byNigoghos Sarafian, an Armenian refugee living inParis who has survived both the Armenian genocideof 1915-1923 and the ensuing BolshevikRevolution. In The Bois de Vincennes, Sarafianmixes philosophy, prose and poetry to create amediation on exile, doubt and the process ofwriting itself. The Bois de Vincennes is also astunning personification of one of Paris’ greatpublic spheres and one of the most beautifultexts written in Western Armenian in thetwentieth century.

Christopher Atamian

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(...)What a change since that day long ago in these same woods when I greetedcivilization with open arms. Since thenI’ve seen promises slip away and glide overpeople’s heads: the unreachable whitecastle which symbolizes freedom and beauty,brotherhood and joy. I saw progress gobackwards, slowly transformed into the mostvile, diabolical treachery.Sometimes I walk slowly under the vaultedtrees, as if I were afraid of the man Imight become with each new step I take. I change with every waking moment until Ibecome a stranger even to my own self. Whoam I? What nation and which country do Ibelong to? I turn away from the world,bitter. Unfortunately I don’t do so out ofsome praiseworthy revolt aimed at preserving an identity that comes frommy own people, even if I do carry deepwithin me the cruel destiny of that people. I’m all alone. My mind has made the mistakeof reaching that place where all beliefsfall like so many illusions and falseidols. There’s a point of self-abnegationthat we believe builds the most just andmagnificent edifice. We take an entirelifetime in order to become this terrifiedarchitect who can’t even find his way whenhe wants to return to this structure. Whoam I who didn’t inherit a single iota of myfather’s faith or of my mother’s deference?I am ashamed to open the Narek1, while myfather would often read from it all nightlong. I’m ashamed to enter a church out ofthe fear that I might have to feignreligious sentiments that I don’t possess.A desire overcomes me to fall to my kneesand cry, and at the same time prideoverwhelms me and I want to rail againstand attack those people who are ableto genuflect before God. Egotism anddeception lie behind their prayers, whetheror not they realize it. Even saints try tosave their own souls. But what do I try tofall back on if not the attempt toreconcile life’s beauty and its absurdity,to try to find common ground between thesemen and myself, to save myself fromoblivion through art, to take pleasure in kindness and love, in other words, tofinally live? To pull myself together whenI fall apart, not to suffer when faced withdeath. Sometimes I lean towards the sensual, and at others towards the intellectual. Sometimes I cling to transcendence, at others I think of transcendence as an illusion that onlydeath will end. At times, I deny theexistence of life after death, and I thinkthat once we are dead, we won’t evenremember who we once were. Sometimes Icling to that treasure called reality

Nigoghos Sarafian

translated by C. Atamian

and I perjure myself. Who created thisreality, where I exist in such a chaoticstate? A chaos which possesses harmony andorder as well. There’s morality, faith,mysticism, socialism, all things that mighthave melded together in a harmonioussymphony if there had just been some powerto bring them together and without whomthey continuously exasperate each other.That’s the mistake that the diasporan-borncommits, between the fall of religion andthe dawn of science, carrying with himdoubtful origins, as well as the talent toadapt to any situation. Who am I, born toseveral languages yet master of none, noteven my mother tongue that I revisited, astranger to myself in a foreign school?Who am I, who condemns my own people eventhough my entire outlook on the world isconditioned by this people’s suffering,that I place above all others? Only farfrom my people, in solitude, do Icomprehend its full scope. I become itspilgrim, to the point that I can’t getmyself to speak a foreign language withoutinsulting its practitioners and withoutwanting to preserve my own personality nomatter what happens. Who am I who becomesunsettled in front of any crowd thatparades by, yet feels ashamed to walkbehind their banner and hides insteadbehind false idiosyncracies? Born cosmopolitan by nature, I becomenationalistic in the extreme. And when faced with the foreign mob, I forget nationalistic anger and suffering.I become heartless and deride alldoctrines. Who am I who feels free in anivory tower that others who lead a publiclife criticize?

These people know nothing aboutthe infinite, while I find myselfconstantly confronting it. These people areblind, prisoners of an illusory freedom,yet implacable and tyrannical in the nameof liberty. Born into revolution,the intelligentsia’s servility makes menauseous. They’re all hired guns, as werethe deportation guards. The pleasure theyfind in their work weighs on my conscience.And yet their betrayal is sweeter to theoppressed mob than the most sincere wordsthat I utter and that remainincomprehensible to them, since they falloutside the purview of passion, ofsuperficial judgments and loud enthusiasms.And I who tell nothing but the truth,I appear more false than the worstrhetorician who speaks in tongues. What amI, an intellectual or a worker? I feelcomfortable with neither one nor the other.I am revolted by both, yet look to them for salvation. I love art and I am ashamed

by it. I love manual work, the lazy life,trips from one country to the next, and allthe advantages that money brings. I loveall these things, yet know them all to befleeting. An entire life sacrificed to theinsanity of writing. Ever doubtfulof divine salvation, suffering and thendisowning my effusive enthusiasms from thenight before, and despair of the sleazethat others wear on their faces like grace,their self-satisfaction also eventuallyturning into grace. An entire lifededicated to manual labor where I’ve beensubjected to the most humiliatingimpositions. Body and soul are weary. And when my better half’s complaints quiterightly egg me on, stimulate and persecuteme, my thoughts turn to becoming wealthy.Yet I know that my conscience would neverforgive me if I did this, that I would bedeprived of feeling and even of life andpleasure. I would go as far as to say thatI would even be deprived of the pleasurethat I derive from both art and work. I was born under the star of disgust.

A chaos born from the sin of intelligence,as is our century and its entirecivilization.

1Sarafian refers here to the 10th Century volumeof prayers entitled The Book of Lamentations byGregory Narekatsi. This book has attained acult-like status among religious Armenians.Referred to simply as “The Narek,” this book hasbeen blamed, by Shahan Shahnour among others, forthe servile mind frame that Armenians haveallegedly been victims of for the past thousandyears.

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Say it loud… displaced and proud.

Dear friends,This is an open letter about the futurestrategies of our development. I think itis necessary to raise some issues justbefore the Tallinn exhibition, which willplay an important role in our selfunderstanding.

Remember the intensive May 2008 meeting inBerlin with artists and curators both fromour group and from Estonia. We did not onlylearn about each other, and present our ownwork and positions, but, for our proposedexhibition in the Tallinn City HallGallery, also had to find a clear answer to the question “why develop a trans-national group project for anational public institution?”. There wasalso the complex problem of finding asatisfying “common denominator” forArmenian diaspora artists and the Estoniarelated artists.

The first working title proposed was„displaced persons“. This was meant in apositive sense, referring to two smallnations with many historical and currentparallel issues, including those ofdiaspora, minorities, immigration, being a“toy ball” of larger geopoliticalinterests, and so on. On one hand it wasfelt this would be a catchy name, probablyguaranteeing a clear discourse; however itcould also trap the viewer intostereotypes. This kind of “victim”position, politically correct andfrequently found in contemporary art, hadsomething unacceptable, deconstructing ourgroup philosophy badly. That was the pointat which we had to debate and persuade sothat the emphasis was moved. Finally, asolution in the form of a different title,“thisPLACEd”, was suggested by Silvina.

We as a group of Armenia related artists donot have a worked out doctrine to relate;instead what we have developed is a numberof significant projects. One starting pointwas the 2003 exhibition “Getting Closer” inBerlin's ifa-galerie¹. The basic conceptwas the decision not to show predictableimages intended to arouse in viewers whatone might call “social-pornographic”feelings. For instance, there were nosentimental black and white photos of theregions that suffered from the 1988earthquake, no defenceless refugees, no

“clochards” and other victims of a failed“communist utopia”. And still it was a very“Armenian” show, or maybe it is better tosay “diasporic” show in its best way – acollaboration, based on trust, respect forand real interest in every artist and everypiece. Later on, Silvina derMeguerditchian, Achot Achot and I organizedother projects, integrating a wholelandscape of other artists. Theconstellation of participants was alwaysdifferent, depending on context andpossibilities: the experience became ourcommon practice. There were exhibitions ininstitutions such as museums in Helsinki,Belgrade, Skopje, Medellin. There werevideo screenings and presentations ingalleries, artist run spaces and othervenues in Berlin, Bonn, Paris, Buenos Airesand Venice.

We developed as artists in a belief thatcontemporary art is a universal language,and the early hope of ourunder_construction group was to integratedispersed artists of Armenian descent and,importantly, to activate Armeniancommunities, making them interested in usas artists performing modern concepts ofidentity. We started to speak about non-mainstream topics. We wanted more thananother line on a CV, more than exhibitionsin “good venues”; we wanted a creativemanifestation and real experience,understanding that we as Armenian diasporaartists are already in a situation whichmany artists of other nationalities arebeginning to have to face, as the times ofa national state are gone.

One thing that has become clear to me andto the other artists is that in the late90s and up to the present, those living incountries with developed art systems havefound themselves excluded from serioussupport and interest. They are already cutoff from their homeland community, but arenot real “aborigines” anymore – to be shownto the western public as an exotic exampleillustrating the clichéd “insights” of themass media and politicians. This might beseen as a sort of paranoia, but it comesfrom personal experience, seeing firsthandhow nationalistic clichés have been pushedthrough international exhibition halls withhelp of “compradores”, “kulturträger”, andother knights of the cold war period whowear grey suits, make capital on middleclass resentments and play a huge role inturning art into show business.

Probably it is more than coincidence thatthe main creative core of our group in oneor another way have not followed the

Archi Galentz

common, usual artistic career path. Beingsomewhat apart from the “system”, many ofus face financial problems as artists andhave to search for uncommon resources. In2006 a known French museum was gatheringvideo works from Armenia based artists fora group of exhibitions for the “year ofFrench-Armenian cultural exchange”. We asdiaspora artists were not welcomed toparticipate. The local Armenian curator gotpaid for a text in the catalogue, but localartists received just 100 Euro for anentire years display of their works inmuseum and other institutions. This is anexample of how democratisation of thecontemporary art business goes hand in handwith its “proletarianisation”. I think ourgroup should continue to use everypossibility to cooperate with foundationsand institutions, but from the position ofthe emancipated and skeptical player. Ifind it is more valid to make a living asa designer or restorer, teacher ortranslator and so on. Let us keep in mindthe historical figure of Spinoza the Jewishphilosopher of the Enlightenment who livedin a diaspora and preferred to make hisliving as a lens polisher but be free todevelop his own philosophy, rather than todeny his ideas and beliefs, beholden to hisorthodox community. Could he be our newsaint?

We have to find time to start to constructsome clearly defined philosophy, possiblyacting in other fields, not only inartistic expression: the example of ourcollaboration forces us to continuediscussions of what it is what we are doingand why it is good to share. Today we arepreparing for the exhibition with Estoniarelated artists and hope to use the week ofcoming together for intensive face to facecommunication. Being as we aretransnational, or multi-geographied, wehave an opportunity to avoid falling intothe role of the “victim”: in fact, we aresurvival experts. We have arrived at thisposition of stressing the positive aspectsof being different, alone, geographicallydispersed and un-integrated: we should takethe next logical step and realize that wewill probably always keep one foot out ofthe contemporary art system. Its strengthis in its flexibility: the changes arealready happening and we better face themas prepared actors and not marrionettes.

There are some brave thinkers like Germanmedia theorist Peter Weibel who, forinstance, explains that the whole ofwestern art is written from the position ofthe cold war, going so far as to announcethat all the books on art of the 20th

century are “maculature”². That’s why themost professional thing to do is to writeown histories. I consider it is the timefor us to decide if we are ready to stoprunning after the “train that left”,consolidate our efforts and to decideclearly which way to move tomorrow.

For me personally, the position of anindependent artist is very near to that ofan arrieregardist fighter. Contemporary artuses this term mostly to name somethingback oriented, a phonetic contradiction toan avantgarde³. I use it as in the sensemeant by the fathers of military theoryJomini and Klausewitz, to speak about theone who faces the enemy without a reservearmy behind him, and without a general whowatches and commands. The arrieregardefighter, this metaphor, is very much aboutsurvival, about keeping contact with yourcomrade, about taking care. A craftsmanartist becomes not a compromise, but ahealthy constellation: I suggest we seethis position as a chance. One of myfavorite contemporary thinkers, theSlovenian born Slavoj Zizek criticized thenew European oppositions to the neo liberalorder, comparing them not as usual with themarginal, but with the strategy of thehysteric who needles his master permanentlywith unrealistic demands. The same happensalso in art: criticism is an important partof and is exposed proudly from the system,to present its tolerant nature, but therequests are from the same unemancipatedmanner: more exhibition space, more moneyfor whatever, more attention from massmedia…

We are often expected to play the role ofthe victim, but we build instead our ownvirtual and physical spaces. This means forme, let us stop thinking of playing apassive role in an old system, wheresomeone else knows what is better, but letus keep on searching for new andindependent criteria. Let us become“thisPLACEd”.

Archi Galentz, Berlin, last days of 2008

1) See exhibition catalogue "Getting Closer- four Armenians are looking for a way out"ifa-galerie Berlin 2003.

2)See Peter Weibel “Der Kalte Krieg und dieKunst” in “Zurück aus der Zukunft”, EditionSuhrkamp 2452, 2005, page 49.

3) See Clement Greenberg’s “Avantgarde andkitsch”, essay from 1939, the beginning ofpart 2

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To build (a landscape)

Creating a context where it’s possible tore-think the dimension “national”belonging, beyond a specific geography.Questioning the relationship between centre/periphery (Diaspora and the Republicof Armenia). Approaching our selfunderstanding not as an archipelago1, butrather as the system of a river delta,flowing from land into one ocean, lake,another river… a landscape formed byaccumulations of sediments carried by thestream as the flow leaves the mouth of theriver2: the islands and islets, the canalsand new bifurcations of this stream are inconstant movement and evolution. Relatingto the water stream. Thinking further a dynamic that follows the cycle of watercondensing to steam, building clouds andraining over the earth. Changing differentestates of density, but not living in theliquid modernity defined by Zygmunt Bauman,nor the evanescent structure ofSloterdijk’s foam theory of society…3because our landscape transports sediments,therefore being a combination of water andearth… Relating us to the delta landscape.Reinforcing the existing links and creatingthrough exchange new and stronger streams.One might speculate that Mesopotamia4,formed by the Tigris and the Euphrates,which leads into a delta, and was also thefirst geography of the Armenians,continues to structure their mentallandscape thousands of years later.

To giveGiving is the warm energy that flows,nourishing, bringing life, curiosity andrespect for the other in this delta as thegulfstream does in the sea. Taking time tounderstand the other. Cultivating theinterest for the other and not only interestfor the self, which is so widespread incontemporary society. Giving a real senseto the word dialog, a term that has becomecommonplace, but that still is not wellunderstood by most people. Cultivating themodel of a mobile personality, whosecentral feature is empathy, "the ability ofthe human being to see himself in thesituation of others”. Pushing the nextdialectic turn of the spiral. Moving from

Silvina Der-MeguerditchianPerformative acts

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times marked by the marketing slogan “Geizist geil” (Miserliness is cool!) toSloterdijk’s “period of balance betweenThymos (the awareness driven by those proudto be able to give something) and Eros,(the desire driven by lack) that has beendominant in recent years”5.

To includeMaking our equation look to others aspotential partners, rather as potentialcontenders. Sharing information, knowledge,feelings, connections, resources andprofessional tools. Using the surfaces ofthe field of contemporary art, withoutbecoming subordinate to its rules.Integrating our dispersed situation intoour identity, not fighting against it.Using the tools created by new technologyto achieve our purposes. Addingpilgrims/intellectuals from other fields(historians, sociologists, psychologists,philosophers, musicians, writers) to ourlandscape. Adding our historical absencesto our pragmatic reality. Enjoyingpresences. Learning from the experience ofduality/plurality of other cultures, suchas in this case, the Estonian/Russianculture.

To flowSowing contemporary gardens (the garden ofdemocracy, the garden of human rights, thegarden of respect, the garden of memory,the garden of equality). Cultivating joy.Helping new gardens and gardeners toflourish, gardeners who will take care,irrigate and raise our delicate seedlings,here and now. Nobody can deny our right tocultivate our culture, music, writing,painting... Cultures that don’t developbecome museum artefacts, nations that don’tproduce culture become “fossil nations”.If we want to live, we have to flow, andnot in only one direction.

To legitimateAccepting the nebulosity of the Diaspora.Recognizing our nature as a cascade ofparadoxes and contradictions: to be in andout of society at the same time. Sharingour points of view because we have theability to feel the dimensions of closenessand remoteness simultaneously. Consideringthis historical consciousness of culturalautonomy as skill. Valorising theregulating and innovating power of

minorities for the society. Understandingthat our primary conscience of the earth“as an open space where we live withothers” is a precious experience andrichness worth sharing.

1) In “D’ Armenie“ « La Diaspora: periferique orarchipelique? » in Arménographie : dispersion deslieux- discontinuité de temps, Anna Barseghianand Stefan Kristensen. In the essay the authorssuggest to consider the notion of archipelago toapproach the interrogation of identity in theDiaspora, where the different Armeniancommunities are islands and the Republic Armeniais the bigger island.

2) According to the different aglomerations andmigrations, (Lebanese-Armenians, Iranian-Armenians in the 1970s, the exodus from theRepublic of Armenia to the USA and Europe in thepast 15 years, to speak only of the largestmigrations from the last 30 years).

3) Sloterdijk uses the image of foam to describesociety as a conglomeration of multiple cells,fragile, different, isolated and permeable. InSloterdijk’s theory of society foam is also ametaphor used to describe multitudes of tissuesand habitats embedded one inside the other.

4) Etymologically: “in between rivers”.

5) DIE ZEIT, Dez. 2008-Interview

Laddaga, Reinaldo, Estética de la emergencia,Buenos Aires, 2006

Agamben Giorgio, Das Offene, Der Mensch und dasTier, Frankfurt, 2003

Dabag Mihran- Platt Kristin, Ed. Identität in derFremde, Bochum, 1993

Kristeva Julia, Fremde sind wir uns selbst, Frankfurt, 1990Le langage, cet inconnu, Paris, 1981

Bataille Georges, Lo que entiendo por soberanía,Barcelona, 1996

Altounian Janine, La survivance- Traduire letrauma collectif, Paris, 2000

The link with reality is created when oneunderstands the surrounding world as a partof himself.

I lived in the USSR for 30 years butrealized its real existence only after itsbreakdown. Which means that I did not livein it but rather in my own sensorial worldwhich only God and I were aware of. I stilldo not understand those conversations aboutthe difference between nations and theArmenians being a nation of worldwidehistorical importance. Later, after havinglived for 7 years in France, I returned toArmenia. The country where I was born andgrew up did not exist anymore. I felt likea tourist discovering a new countryand new people. Everything had changed; Ihad changed too, but my constant world wasalways with me: it followed me everywhere.It turned out that I was born and I hadgrown up in the Soviet Union, but had neverlived in it. I do not know if thisphenomenon affects others. I used to wear aPioneer tie but I was never a YoungPioneer; I used to give bribes whileshopping but did not know I was bribing;passing through the main place of the cityduring a May Day I was just moving from onepoint to another. Which means that such acountry does not exist and that in 1993 Ileft neither the remains of an imaginarySoviet Union nor the quickly made upArmenian Republic: I left my missed unitywith people who wanted to live andcommunicate with each other in the Armenianway of life, which had been strange to mefrom earliest childhood. The artist is aspecial plant: the phenomenon of mimicrydoes not extend to him. External conditionsonly accelerate or slow down his growth.For the artist, art is the best way tounderstand reality because only artpreserves the form of an emotionalexperience in social life. As a sharplyperceiving individual, he is a stranger tothe collective consciousness, whichexplains the gap between collectiveperception and his production: hisproduction is made as a transformation ofindividual consciousness. As an artist, canI consider myself to be a socialsingularity? Is there a social border in myconsciousness? Why does socialcommunication bring suffering and feelingsof unhappiness where there is no culprit?Social frameworks imposed on the artist areless oppressive than ethnic, national and

traditional ones. The latter restrictpersonal freedom in one’s life choicesand thinking: they become the police offree self-expression.Carl Andre hasnoticed: “Art is what we do. Culture iswhat is done to us.” In order tosimplify and make it accessible for all,art is turned into culture.Armenians do not manage to make a decision:being between the West and the East,Armenia is like a tree with roots extendingtowards the East leaves reaching towardsthe West. Sometimes these leaves fall downand the branches, as the logicalcontinuation of roots, are stripped bare oftheir true origin. The genetic codecontained in blood actively participates inthe creative process, defining thetemperament and the thermo-chromatic natureof the work. It is the strongest linkconnecting me as a person and as an artistwith Armenia and Armenians. People areconstantly looking to belong to a culture,a nation and a homeland, a phenomenon whichleads to a total disappearance of thereality of individual existence. As for myown experience, this research led me todiscover the real Me, beyond allsociopolitical, national-geographicalconventions. Spiritual values have nosimilar classifications. This is entirelyanother platform: God and soul. Theircommunication is beyond social links; theyare purely personal relations based onan unconditional love and full devotion.God cannot be Armenian, Jewish, or French.After coming to understand one’s trueessence, one cannot continue to have anyfeelings of national identity. Only at sucha level is social reality transformed toperfect personal harmony between people andall existence. The cause of all of ourworries is our broken communication withthe Absolute; however, one searches forother reasons naively thinking that thematerial accomplishment will bring thepeace to the whole world. Actually, oneforgets that envy, avidity, anger, lazinessand arrogance destroy every day ouruniversal harmony. Attachment to one’s bodyis the single force behind all our illusoryactivity. Thirst for power and glory is thegoal of the weak. These are expressed inthe accumulation of human labour, in money.In artworks, the artist’s experience andmeaning of life are present. That is whyartworks are the most expensive objects onearth. On earth, but not in the sky.Before my departure from Armenia thedirector of the cultural centre where Iused to teach told me as a goodbye : «...Leave, it is also a way to preserve theArmenian culture». These words were a greatrelief. I have often asked myself: did I

Achot Achot

or did I simply go to live in France? Mostlikely neither. The reasons were a desirefor moral freedom and moral non-interference with one’s private life, bothof which were always absent in SovietArmenia and remain so in the post-Sovietsystem. Art as an invisible balsam softensand cures the wounds of the soul. It isnot able to carry out administrative,social, or political functions: in so doingit would cease to be art and would beanother activity. As spiritual activity,art is directed towards the soul, towardsits study, and towards the restoration oflove, as its very best quality. What wetoday call contemporary art is nothing butthe carrier of ideology of the state. Thecontemporary art dictatorship is verysimilar to the dictatorship of socialistrealism expressed through the praise of thesocialist system and the cult ofpersonality. Contemporary art doesthe same, but under pretexts such as theprotection of the environment, ofnonviolence, of human rights, etc.Institutions finance such projects, butafter two or three short years theseburst like soap bubbles. Because an artistmaking such work doesn’t live the life hepreaches in the end the result is always:«Consume better, consume more». Suchinstitutions have continued to feed"elites", when there is no necessity for areinforcement of the ideology ofconsumption: the products of consumptionthemselves already accomplish thisfunction.Today one has the impression thatthe Armenian people, throughout theirexistence, dreamt only to fill up theirstomachs and to drive the smartest cars.Such mentality is very strange tome and it is this which violently pushed meout from this environment which is oppositeto the nature of human love. It isdifficult and almost impossible to livethere where anything subtle and sublime istrodden for the sake of the Armenian way oflife and happiness: «I live well becauseyou live badly». «Love your neighbour» isreplaced by a more "biblical" «humiliateyour neighbour». It was the typicalposition of a “respectable person” duringthe Soviet period. It is still the same inthis era of wildly developing capitalism.In my own case mimicry did not work eitherin the homeland or abroad. Society killspersonal relations with an ideology ofcontinuous economic development andconsumption at the highest level.Finally, man is not necessary to anybody:neither in his homeland nor in a foreignland. He is the one who needs them for theprotection of his little personal freedom.Both the homeland and the foreign land are

of the same essence: human congestion onmother earth. People move on it and createnew states, calling them homelands. But towhom belongs the homeland? If I can easilyleave my homeland, do I not belong to itand it does not need me? I think, mostlikely it is the case that it sends me toforeign lands for its own rescue...All our geographical movements are linkedwith the search for freedom, which existsonly in our personal dictionary. The restis a matter of history, that misleadingscience. Freedom and the right to beoneself are inherent to high civilization.In European countries this freedomand this right are present on a platform ofmoderate or well controllable egotism. Inthe Armenian child, egotism is cultivatedfrom birth; then, as a teenager, he is surethat he is the best in the world. He who,because of education and an openconsciousness does not think like this,accepts a similar protective position: “Iam like everybody but slightly better”.One of the important values of a highcivilization is compassion. It is a sign ofspiritual progress and of a healthysociety. Compassion can be reached bydisinterested execution of a duty. In theVedic concept of the perfect society it issaid: «The King should sacrifice hispersonal interests for the sake of familyinterests, family interests for the sake ofstate interests, state interests for thesake of his people’s interests and hispeople’s for the sake of interests of thewhole of humanity».Each nation writes itsown history and the history of the others,taking into account such values as justice,honor, freedom, love for one’s neighbor...but from a position of national interest,without understanding that such valuescannot be national. I have never likedhistory and never trusted it. From"historical" considerations people havecome to hate other people, and haveinflated their own vanity and arrogance.The same history justifies violence andrevenge, proceeding as always from nationalinterests. History is written by personalambitions fed by a collectiveconsciousness. With people as well as withanimals and plants mimicry is an instinctof self-preservation. I do not requirethis instinct, it is only an imaginarydefense, it is one of the most direct formsof exploitation of man by man. Trueprotection of the person comes from aboveand is not influenced bysocial, or ethnic, or personal cataclysms.This is the protection that moves me intime and space.

Berlin 12.07.2008

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Achot Achotborn in Yerevan (1961)lives and works in Paris www.afactum.come-mail: afactum@gmail.com

SOLO EXHIBITIONS (selection) <2007, « Passé présent, demain », Musée départemental deGap, France> <2006, « Méditations chromatiques », Museum of contemporary art, Yerevan><« Afactum + 15 » , ACCEA, Armenian Center for Contemporary Experimental Art,« Point,ligne, méditation » Yerevan, « Binerf », Gallery Artcore, Paris> <2005, Gallery Artcore,Paris> <1999, Gallery TPG, Genève, Suisse><GROUP EXHIBITIONS > (selection) « ArmarArmenia », Buenos Aires, Argentine « Withe now ! », Galerie Seine 51, Paris,France<2006, International Biennale of contemporary art, Gyumri, Armenia> <2005, «INDEPENDENCIA » Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellin, Colombia, « EGO » Festival deperformances, Medellin, Manizales, Colombia> <2004, « EGO » Festival internationald’art contemporain, Ezanville, France> <2003, « Getting closer », IFA – Gallery, Bonn,Berlin, Germany> <2001,« Au-delà des icônes », National Gallery of Armeni, Yerevan> <«Art Bunker in Moskau », ZDH, Moscow, Russia> <2000, « Tentation céleste », Paris> <1995«Stream of Fire », The Pharos Trust, Nicosia, Cyprus> <1993 IDENTIFICATION », Museumof Modern Art, Yerevan> <1992, « 9 - neuf », Museum of Modern Art, Yerevan > <1989 «666 », Yerevan> <« Armenian avant-garde in Paris », Chapelle de la Salpêtrière, Paris><1988,1st. festival of happenings , Anikstchaï, Lituanie> <1987, « 3rd floor », Yerevan,Armenia> < PUBLIC COLLECTIONS> <Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellin, Colombia, Museum ofModern Art, Yerevan, Armenia, Museum of the city of Panévégis, Lithuania, Center ofContemporrary Art of Gyumri, Armenia>

Emily Artinian (Poppy Engels) born in Pennsylvania (1970)lives and works in London, Chicago, and Pennsylvaniawww.emilyartinian.cominfo@emilyartinian.com

EXHIBITIONS <2008 « Sitting Room », K Gallery, Alameda, California and UniversidadAutónoma Metropolitana, Mexico City> <2007 « Books of Western artists from Matisse tothe 21st century », Museum of Art and History, Taipei, Taiwan, « Underconstruction »,Venice, Italy> <2006 « FACTION: Collected Works », University of the West of England,Bristol, UK, « FACTION », Arnolfini Gallery Bookshop, Bristol, UK> <2005 « Sense:Absence », Clerkenwell Green Assc, London> <2004 « Constructing Reality », Foyles,London> <2001 « Obviously, no one expects to discover anything », Foyles, London>EDITIONS <2005 « From Ararat to Angeltown », « The High Window »> <2004 « Real Fiction»> WRITING/LECTURES <2008 « The Oceanic Page: Wikipedia and the Artists Book », TheLiquid Page Symposium, Tate Britain, « Who cares where the apostrophe goes?non/participation in the Wikipedia definition of artists books », The Blue Notebook><2007 « The High Window, by Emily Artinian and 29 Readers », White Collar> TEACHING<Chelsea College of Art, London> PUBLIC COLLECTIONS (selection) <Tate Britain, Yale ArtLibrary, The Art Institute of Chicago, Kiosk> OTHER <President, ARA Real Estate,President, ARA Consulting, Ltd, Pennsylvania>

Curricula Vitae

Olga Jürgensonborn in Kemerovo (1969)lives and works in Cambridge, UKwww.olgajurgenson.come-mail: art@olgajurgenson.com

<SOLO EXHIBITIONS> (selected) <2008 Tallinn City Gallery, Estonia (with Mare Tralla)><2006, 2005 Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery, UK> <2004 Am Hauptplatz gallery> <2001Russian Cultural Institute, Vienna, Austria>, <Kohtla-Jarve City Gallery, Estonia><2000 Artists’ Studios, Kulturkontakt, Vienna, Austria> <1999 Borey Arts Centre, St.Petersburg, Russia> <Raatuse Gallery, Tallinn, Estonia> <1997 Estonian Art Museum,Jõhvi, Estonia> <Narva Museum Art Gallery, Estonia> <1994 Kohtla-Järve Museum, Estonia><GROUP EXHIBITIONS> (selected) <2008 Wysing Inside Out, Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge,UK> <Monument, Video films by Estonian Artists, Akhmatova Museum, St Petersburg, Russia(screening)> <3rd Residency, Allianse Francaise, Port Louis, Mauritius> <2007 JokingAside, Bury St Edmunds Art Gallery, UK> <2006 Biennale of Contemporary Art, Shumen,Bulgaria> <Global Fusion 2006, Palace Porcia, Vienna, Austria> <2005 Wind Art Festival,Seoul, Korea> <Global Fusion 2005, transport shelters in Melbourne, Australia;Maroondah art gallery, Ringwood, Australia> <PVA Medialab, Substation, Singapore><2004 Paradise in Bunker, Kunstbunker Tumulka, Munich, Germany> <Art not War, DioramaGallery, London, UK> <2002 The Good and the Bad, Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool, UK><Global Fusion 2002, Palace Porcia, Vienna, Austria> <1994 Woman Illuminating the Nightslide show, Berlin, Germany> <1993 Bothnia Art Workshop exhibition in Oulu Art Museum,Finland>

Archi Galentzborn in moscow (1971)lives and works in Berlin, Moscow and Yerevanwww.ArchiGalentz.arrieregarde.orge-mail: archigalentz@genion.de

EDUCATION <1989, State University of Arts Yerevan, Armenia, 1992 University of Arts(UdK) Berlin, 1997 Masterclass degree> <SOLO SHOWS> < 2007 "Pose As A Position", TheClub, Yerevan> <2006 "USTA, has you got some ASTAR?", Prima Center, Berlin> <2005 "ThisDays in 16 Years", Prima Center, Berlin> <2001 "Im Schwarzen Garden", Südost Zentrum,Berlin> <2000 "Archi Galentz. Malerei" Gallery Taube, Berlin> <GROUP SHOWS> <2007"Grand bleu", Artcore, Paris> <2006 "Don't be Scared", ACCEA, Yerevan, "5thInternational Gymri Biennale ", Armenia> <2005 "Situated Self ", MoCA Belgrade, Serbiaand City Art Museum, Helsinki, Finnland, "ego, International Festival", MoCA Medellin,Columbia, "Focus Istanbul: Urban Realities", Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin,"INTERNATIONAL", NCCA, Moscow> <2004 "Not In The Sky and Not On The Earth", MoCA Skopje,Macedonia, "Na Kyrort, Russian Art Today", Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden> <2003"Flowers from no man's land", Gallery in Parlament, Berlin, "Paradies", BunkerAlexanderplatz, Berlin, "Getting Closer" ifa-Gallery, Berlin and Bonn> <2002"Ostensiv", CAH Moscow, "Nativ Land - Fatherland", Malij Manej, Moscow, "Stop! Who IsComing?", NCCA, Moscow> <2000 "EXPO 2000", Armenian Pavillon, Hannover, "2nd.International Gymri Biennale", Armenia> <1989 "Student Posters", Museum of NationalArt, Sardarabad, Armenia> COLLECTIONS <Museum of National Art, Sardarabad,Armenia, MoCASkopje, Macedonia, MoCA Belgrade, Serbia, MoCA Medellin, Columbia><2007„under_construction : visual dialogue” Isola di San Lazzaro> <2008„Diagnosis/Interdiagnosis“, Artists Haus, Yerevan,„A(r)mar Armenia“, AsociacionCultural Armenia, Buenos Aires> <CURATED ><2007 "Dez'avju", Open University, Yerevan>< 2006 "Questioning Saro Galentz", Boyadjian Gallery, Yerevan>

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Eléonore de Montesquiou born in Paris (1970)lives and works in Berlin and Tallinn http://atomcities.vox.come-mail: nagrane@gmail.com

SOLO EXHIBITIONS (selection) <2008, “DELTA”, Moscow contemporary city foundation,Russia, cur. Andrei Parchikov> <2008, “DIE PENDLERINNEN”, Magdeburg Museum, Germany><2006, Villa du Parc Centre d'art contemporain, France> <2006, Plattform, Berlin, cur.Ulrike Kremeier> <2006, Galerie Zürcher, Paris> <2006, “ATOM CITIES”, Kunstihoone LinnaGalerii, Tallinn> <2005, “OLGA OLGA HELENA”, A. Blok Museum, St Petersburg andContemporary Art Centre Espace Croisé, Roubaix> <GROUP EXHIBITIONS (selection) <2008,“À chacun ses étrangers”, Cité de l’Imigration, Paris> <2008, “LAND OF HUMAN RIGHTS”,<rotor>, Austria> <2008, « LA VIE MODERNE/revisitée », Centre d’art Passerelle, France><2008, “ZAPPING UNIT”, Ferme du Buisson, cur. Keren Detton> <2008, “THE SEA IS ASTEREO”, Gallery MOTIVE, Amsterdam> <2007, “MONUMENTS OF DISCONTENT”, 2nd MoskowBiennale, cur. Lolita Jablonskiene> <2007, “NAKED LIFE”, MOCA Taïpei, Taiwan cur.Manray Hsu and Maren Richter> <2006, “BEAST OF BURDEN”, General Public, Berlin> <2006,“L’USAGE DU MONDE”, MMSU, Rijeka, cur. Ana Janevski> <2006, “MIT ALLEM RECHNEN”, Museumam Ostwall, Dortmund, cur. Inke Arns>

Silvina Der-Meguerditchian born in Buenos Aires (1967) lives and works in Berlinwww.silvina-der-meguerditchian.com e-mail: silvina.der@gmail.com

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS <2008, Gallery K9, Hannover, Germany> <2006, Siempreviva,Klosterruine, Berlin> <2005 RECONOCER, Galerie ELSI del RIO, Buenos Aires> <2004, Thedream collection, Instituto Cervantes, Berlin> <2003, Galerie Raskolnikow, Dresden,A.L.M.A Museum, Boston, U.S.A> <2002, The textur of the identity, C.C. Recoleta, BuenosAires> <2001, Subjektive Eindrucke, C.C. Borges, Buenos Aires> SELECTED GROUPEXHIBITIONS <2008, Obscurum per Obscurius, Tallinn Art Hall, Estonia, KahvehaneProject, Ballhaus Naunynstrasse. Berlin> <2007,Visual Dialog: under –construction,Mekhitarian Monastery, Venice, Reality Crossings,"Fotofestival Mannheim-Ludwigshafen-Heidelberg"> <2006, Art fair ARTEBA06 with Gallery Elsi del Rio, Buenos Aires, 9.Biennale Gyumri, Armenia/ Zona de Trânsito, Cervantes Institut de São Paulo, Zonaefímera> <2005,Las lloronas del arte, Performance/Film with lab Berlin, Prima CenterGallery, Berlin, ARTEBA 05- Artfair, Buenos Aires, "The free will", Bunker in the Arena,Berlin Urban realities: Focus Istanbul, Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin, "Heimat:Inbetween", Hamburg, "Corrosión", Uberlandia, Brazil,"Always visible", Sao Paulo><2004, Die Traumsammlung,Instituto Cervantes, Berlin, Evita: un Escudo, Senate fromBuenos Aires, "Ciclo" with Imaginary Line, C.C. Sao Paulo, Brazil, Print Triennial,InExile, Center for Contemporary arts, Tallin, Eastland, Paradies Projekt, Kunstsalon,Berlin, Armenian linking, Prima Center Gallery, Berlin> <2003, ARVEST, Los Angeles><RESIDENCES: ACCEA, Yerewan> CURATED PROJECTS <2008, Armar Armenia, Buenos Aires /2007, Talking about identities in the Armenian Transnation, Venice> GRANTS & AWARDS<ECF Grant 2007> PUBLIC COLLECTIONS <City of Buenos Aires, Collection of the U.S.American Embassy>

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Reet VarblaneReet Varblane (Pärnu, 1952): Since 2003 February works as curator-gallerist at theTallinn Art Hall. Since 1997 works also as art editor of the Estonian cultural weeklySirp. She has organized exhibitions and written art critics since 1975. She studiedfeminist art and art history, having several lectures at the Estonian Art Academy,Pedagogical University, Musical Academy. Some curatorial projects on the feminist art:“Code-ex” (1994, in collaboration with Swedish and Norwegian artists), “Est-Fem”(1995), “Meta-dialogue” (1998), “Small role games” (2000), “Woman in the beginning ofthe XX century” (2005), international artproject about the aging and old people “Homograndis natu” (2005 in Tallinn, 2006 in Moscow), international artproject aboutprostitution “Sexmarket” in 2007. etc. In 2006 she curated the Chinese contemporary art form Guangzhou “City Expressions” inTallinn, the israelian artists Tal Adler’s project “Unrecommended villages” in Tallinn.In 2008 the Estonian art “Borderstate” in Guangzhou, Orlan’s exhibition at the TallinnArt Hall, international project about the religion conflicts and democracy “Obscurumper obscurius”, personal show of Andrei Monastyrski (together with Ilya Sundelevitsh)etc.

Estela Schindel Estela Schindel (Buenos Aires, 1968): Graduated in Communications at the University ofBuenos Aires and holds a PhD in Sociology from the Free University Berlin. Based in Berlin,she writes and teaches on dictatorship and memory cultures in Europe and Latin America,migration and subjectivity under the globalization, public art and the urban space.

Christopher AtamianChristopher Atamian is a writer, producer and director living in New York City. Herecently completed the translation of Nigoghos Sarafian's "The Bois de Vincennes" anda first novel. He is a frequent contributor to major newspapers and magazines in theUnited States. He produced the OBIE award winning play "Trouble in Paradise" and hasscreened his short films in festivals around the world. He currently writes a columnon art for The Armenian Reporter International called "Studio Visits."

Editionunderconstruction e V.Leonhardstr. 15D-14057 BerlinTel. 0049 30 32702400Silvina_der@t-online.dewww.underconstructionhome.net

The copyrights for texts and picturesbelong to the artists and authors.

Design: Florencia Young & Marula Di Como / S. Der-MeguerditchianPrint: druckhaus köthen GmbH, Friedrichstr. 11/12, 06366 Köthen/Anhalt

Curators: Silvina Der-Meguerditchian, Reet VarblaneProduction assistant: Laura RodriguezTexts: Christopher Atamian, Reet Varblane, Estela Schindel, Archi Galentz,Achot Achot, S. Der-MeguerditchianEditors: Emily Artinian and Silvina Der-MeguerditchianEditorial support: Gaby Schäfer

We would like to thank all those who have helped make this project possible: Sirje Helme, Marc Wrasse, Oliver and Avedis Neehus, Gaby Schäfer.

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