{"id":93760,"date":"2025-08-24T15:06:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T15:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/93760\/"},"modified":"2025-08-24T15:06:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T15:06:07","slug":"artists-inhabit-soviet-ruin-in-armenia-for-site-specific-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/93760\/","title":{"rendered":"artists inhabit soviet ruin in armenia for site-specific project"},"content":{"rendered":"

Soviet-era building in armenia hosts site-specific art program<\/p>\n

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The abandoned, Soviet-era Palace of Culture in the spa town of Jermuk, Armenia, hosts Architecture: Ghostly Past and Unrevealed Present, a site-specific art program by ToC Cultural Organization that explores architectural abandonment as a form of ongoing presence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Over the course of a one-week residency in April 2025, three Armenian artists, photographer Armen Ter-Mkrtchyan, sculptor Manvel Matevosyan, and printmaker Sophie Musoyan, inhabited the building, creating works directly within its walls using salvaged materials, dust, light, and shadow. Their interventions embraced its fragments, its chipped tiles, rusted frames, and weathered textures as tools for storytelling, questioning what stories the building would tell if it could speak again.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Ter-Mkrtchyan\u2019s photographs<\/a> explore the passage of time by using shadows and light reflections. Musoyan uses the cyanotype process to create images that record textures and faint shapes on paper. Matevosyan builds sculptures<\/a> from materials found inside the palace, creating a physical connection between the artwork and the building\u2019s current state. The exhibition<\/a> After Silence, held at the nearby Jermuk Gallery, featured the artists\u2019 works.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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all images courtesy of ToC Cultural Organization<\/a><\/p>\n

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short documentary traces Ghostly Past and Unrevealed Present<\/p>\n

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Architecture: Ghostly Past and Unrevealed Present stands apart from typical reuse or heritage projects because it\u2019s based on the idea that a building is still empty until someone enters it, moves through it, or speaks inside it. Armen Ter-Mkrtchyan<\/a>, Manvel Matevosyan<\/a>, and Sophie Musoyan <\/a>worked with this idea when they entered the Palace of Culture, allowing the building\u2019s materials, surfaces, and feeling to guide their work.<\/p>\n

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The project by ToC Cultural Organization also includes a short documentary by filmmaker Marat Sargsyan, which shows how the artists worked with the space. It was selected by the LINA European Architecture Platform and shown at the 2024 LINA Architecture Conference in Sarajevo. Through this, Ghostly Past and Unrevealed Present brings attention to Jermuk\u2019s forgotten modernist buildings and connects them to wider conversations in Europe about decay, reuse, and the value of places that are often overlooked.<\/p>\n

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the abandoned, Soviet-era Palace of Culture in the spa town of Jermuk, Armenia<\/p>\n

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three Armenian artists inhabited the building in April 2025<\/p>\n

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Armen Ter-Mkrtchyan, Manvel Matevosyan, and Sophie Musoyan created works directly within its walls<\/p>\n

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using salvaged materials, dust, light, and shadow<\/p>\n