5th GYUMRI ART WEEK / City & Time

August 7–20, 2026, Gyumri Technology Center

Curated by Sargis Hovhannisyan, Nazaret Karoyan (ICA), Victoria Ilyushkina (CYLAND), Gor Margaryan (Muthesius), Jan‐Niklas Thape (Kunstakademie Münster), Karen Barseghyan (artzon), Vahagn Ghukasyan (Gyumri Branch of the State Academy of Fine Arts of Armenia).

International Gyumri Art Week is an annual festival for contemporary art in the city of Gyumri, Armenia. Curated by Sargis Hovhannisyan, it is designed to become a catalyst for artistic research and experimentation in the region and to provoke debates on the actual cultural and societal processes. 

The 5th Gyumri Art Week explores how a city is shaped over time and how time “lives” within the city. It brings together the past, present and future, presenting the city as a living organism that is constantly changing and reshaping itself.

In today’s world, where digitalization, demographic change and the challenges of sustainable development are becoming increasingly complex, there is a need for new thinking about the relationship between time and the city. These challenges do not merely disrupt established urban paradigms; they also create new opportunities to rethink urban life and its structure.

This year’s festival focuses on the interactions within the city, revealing the meeting ground between the organized city and the free imagination of art. Urban life is often structured by clear planning and regulation principles, while art offers spontaneous and experimental interruptions that expand the boundaries of how these systems are perceived. The festival views art not only as a means of expression but also as a critical tool that can reveal, reimagine, and reconstruct our understanding of the city.

CYLAND Video Archive Program 

Curated by Victoria Ilyushkina

7 August | 19꞉00 / Official Opening Ceremony / Gyumri Technology Centre, Gayi Street 1, Gyumri, Armenia

Artists: Johannes Gierlinger, Amy Kong, Kenji Ouellet, Yulia Gadalova    

Johannes Gierlinger

Every Epoch Dreams the Next, 2025

18 min 29 sec

Starting with an excerpt from an Albanian feature film from the communist era, in which a boy dreams of the construction of a modern city, “Every Epoch Dreams the Next” revolves around the historical and current transformation processes of urban space. The film reflects on the power of images, on historical and contemporary utopias, and on how power structures can override the common good and the general public.

Amy Kong

Through the Glass Darkly, 2024

10 min 21 sec

Memory is not a static record but a landscape prone to erosion. This work explores the fracture in sanity that arises when the world we remember no longer matches the world we see, navigating the shared shadows of empires found in two distant places — Hong Kong and Armenia. A geography of the mind that persists even when the external city becomes unrecognizable.

Kenji Ouellet

“V” (as in the letter V, not the Roman numeral 5), 2017

19 min

Mythical landscapes, the utopia of wilderness, and the capture of the moment. Nature serves as a mirror of, or a backdrop for, the self. “V” documents, without comment, human interactions with nature and landscapes in Iceland. It observes, among other things, the tension between direct experience and the labor of (self-)representation, the ways nature serves as a symbol or projection screen for our inner states, and the intersection of biological and geological time.

Kenji Ouellet

I am One, 2016

HD, stereo

20 min 30 sec

In “I am One”, a collection of quotes about uniqueness and individuality by celebrities and lesser-known authors (from Bill Gates or Karl Lagerfeld to Simone de Beauvoir) is heard over images of a densely built-up, highly populated urban area and its architecture. The narrative is well-known but contradicted by the images, generating an encounter between collective and individual perspectives on singularity.

Yulia Gadalova

Decay, 2026

generative artwork

“Decay” is part of a series exploring the fading of traditional culture, focusing on bread-baking practices. It draws on 3D scenes collected by the artist during field trips to rural settlements in Armenia, undertaken with a group of other creatives. These communities center baking around sourdough, preserved and nourished year-round, and the underground oven, tonyr. The video features piles of lavash, cut bread, and handmade tools used for sifting flour and placing dough. Captured from real environments and transformed through generative algorithms, the scenes gradually dissolve, distorted through subtle, glitch-like interventions. The work reflects on cultural erosion while emphasizing the need to preserve such practices for resilient communities, economies, and ecosystems.

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