News

Discussion Series Art in Conflict – Gessnerallee Zurich

16. Oktober 2024, 17.15 h CET 
Gessnerallee 8, Stall 6, Zurich & Zoom

Community Building in Fragile Contexts 
with Shoghakat Mlke-Galstyan (Armenia, artasfoundation and Rana Yazaji (Germany, artasfoundation)

The Living Room project is a meeting space for displaced people from Nagorno-Karabakh, local participants, and international artists. At the heart of the initiative is the belief that art has the potential to create democratic and grassroots-oriented approaches to collective and individual healing after experiencing violence. Various communities work together in different social and artistic formats to encourage those who have lost their homes and to support artists in engaging with creative and conflict-sensitive approaches to shaping a peaceful future.

In the current edition of Art in Conflict, we present the artasfoundation project Living Room and explore questions of community building in a fragile context. How does the exchange with local cultural organisations take shape in the effort for transparent and mutual interaction? How can artists be encouraged to engage with issues related to the conflict through socially transformative art initiatives? And what insights can be gained from this for projects in the field of art and peacebuilding when working with communities?

Shoghakat Mlke-Galstyan is responsible for networking and project management at artasfoundation with a focus on Armenia. She is an actress, dancer, arts manager, co-director of the MIHR Theater, and a lecturer at the Yerevan State Institute of Theatre and Cinematography.

Rana Yazaji is co-director of artasfoundation. She is conducting research at the Zurich University of the Arts as part of the SNF project Contemporary Art, Popular Culture, and Peacebuilding in Eastern Europe and serves as a consultant and trainer in socially engaged art practices, focusing on building agile institutional structures for organisations working with distressed communities.

At Stall 6, the bar at Gessnerallee, we will be happy to open the space for an informal discussion after the talk. The discussion is held in English. The event will take place in Zurich as well as online on Zoom. To sign up for the Zoom link, please, e-mail us by the day before the event. 

This event is part of a monthly series that is organised by the CAP, a joint initiative of artasfoundation and the ZHdK in cooperation with Theater Gessnerallee. If you wish to be regularly informed about the agenda of the discussion series each month, please, sign up for our Art in Conflict invitation list here. 


Further Dates: 

Wednesday, 13. November 2024
Theatre Initiatives in Times Of War 
with Mira Sack (Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK, Switzerland), Lena Saade Gebran (USEK’s University, Lebanon) and Shebli Albau (theatre maker, Switzerland)
ZHdK, Toni-Areal, Pfingstweidstr. 96, Zürich

Wednesday, 11. December 2024
Economy, War and the Role of Art? 
with Robert Bachmann (Public Eye, Switzerland)
Gessnerallee, Gessnerallee 8, Zürich

Wednesday, 15. January 2025 
“Conflict Engagement” Through Art 
with Dana Caspersen (conflict analyst, dance practitioner, USA)
Gessnerallee, Gessnerallee 8, Zürich

Supported by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia

Living Room – A Space for Artists, Organisations and Communities

The Living Room is a connecting space for displaced communities from Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenian artists and international artists and cultural workers collaborating in varied social and artistic forms. 

Besides the activities organised by artasfoundation, the space will also host other projects that simply need a space to work. 

The physical space is accessible for artists, organisations and communities involved in social transformation and looking for a space to practice, rehearse, gather, exchange, perform or simply meet. 


Submit a request for booking the space 
 
 

Connecting Two Mountain Regions Through Sharing Stories 

When grandparents tell bedtime stories to their grandchildren, there is a moment of shared presence and attentive listening. Sharing Stories aims to explore storytelling, drawing and printing/publishing as artistic tools for fostering exchange – across generations as well as across borders.

The first edition of the project is organised in cooperation with SKLAD (Abkhazia¹) and DOGO Residency (Toggenburg) 2024 – 2025 and consists of a residency in each of the two regions where the stories of the older generation will be told to the young one. With the help of artists from both regions and through various methods including writing, drawing and animation the children will create a verbal and visual documentation resulting in bilingual zines. The artistic output will be shared with the public in an exhibition in each region offering insights into other life realities.