The Armenian Communities Department of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation is pleased to announce the ten awardees of the 2026 արդ եւս|in view grants. This year’s cohort explores the concept of culture as a “social infrastructure” – a living, breathing network that sustains the Western Armenian language through film, digital media, music, and performance.

As the global Armenian landscape continues to evolve, the արդ եւս|in view programme remains a vital platform for contemporary creators who use Western Armenian as a dynamic tool for modern _expression_. The selected projects for this cycle demonstrate how art can act as a bridge across borders, connecting the communities, sounds, and memories of the Diaspora and its language.

This year’s selection represents a diverse geographical spread, from Lebanon and Armenia to France, Germany, Canada and the United States, reflecting the global nature of the Western Armenian creative world.

Below is the list of awardees and projects:

• Arman Peshtmaljyan (Armenia/France/USA): 1001 Voices – A music-driven project exploring the diverse vocalities of the global Armenian experience; creating five new original works in Western Armenian, based on newly written or creatively translated contemporary texts.
• Armenian Creatives (USA/Group): Those, words that offer to us: dispersed schools – A publication that will gather a collection of syllabi, project packets, workbooks, and more wherein each contribution offers a distinct interpretation of a lesson plan using their research findings as their source material. A compendium in which each contribution proposes an experimental school for translating and practicing Western Armenian.
• Christopher Atamian, Tamar Hovsepian, Nane Davtyan (USA/Group): Anna Boghiguian Documentary – A cinematic portrait of the renowned contemporary artist Anna Boghiguian, whose work has significantly shaped the discourse around identity, memory, materiality, and cultural continuity in contemporary art.
• Hakob Manukyan (Lebanon/Armenia): Armenian Soundtrack of Lebanon – A film that will document Beirut’s musical trajectory and legacy as it explores how art and language reflect their times, and how historical, political, and economic forces, in turn, shape artistic direction and _expression_.
• Hrant Kalemkerian (France/Lebanon): ՕԴԱԲԵՐԻԿ (Otaperig) – The two-part project will feature a docufictional series using archives, photographs, letters, oral histories, and stories told within intimate circles to document stories from Armenian communities worldwide and bring them to Bourj-Hammoud to be told; and a stopmotion series, which will collect news from the daily lives of different Armenian communities.
• Marlene Edoyan (Canada/Armenia): Psychogeography of Language – A feature-length hybrid essay film that approaches language through the lens of psychogeography. It explores how language survives when separated from stable geography and how it reshapes identity across time and place. 
• Niagara Arminée Neige Tonolli (France). Those who left twice |: The Twice Departed – A documentary about Armenian families from the Rhône Valley in France (Décines, Valence, Vienne) who took part in the repatriation movements to Soviet Armenia during the campaigns of 1936 and 1947. 
• Silvina Der Meguerditchian (Germany): Languages | Լեզուներ – A multilingual, experimental book based on the eponymous Western Armenian text by Krikor Beledian. The project combines selected fragments and essayistic reflections on Diaspora and multilingualism with photographic work. 
• Serli Hachigoglu (USA): Between Tongues: The Language of Memory – An immersive, multisensory exhibition and accompanying website exploring intergenerational Armenian identity through Western Armenian as a language of nurture, survival and belonging.
• Tsolak Galstyan (Armenia): “Embodied Language” – An interdisciplinary cultural production project that will create three short dance films in cinematic noir style, each inspired by the poetry of a major Western Armenian poet. 

By supporting these projects, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation continues to treat culture as a fundamental infrastructure. These works do more than preserve the language; they innovate within it, ensuring that Western Armenian remains a medium for critical thought, artistic excellence, and social connection.

The արդ եւս|in view grants provide up to €10,000 in support per project. We look forward to the debut of these works, which will be shared through various digital platforms, screenings, and installations over the coming years.

For further information please visit: the Armenian Communities website, subscribe to the newsletter and follow their Facebook page.

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