Category: News

Tumo Center for Creative Technologies was launched in Nagorno Karabakh’s capital Stepanakert today thanks to partnership between the Simonian Educational Foundation has partnered with the Armenian General Benevolent Union.

The official opening ceremony was attended by the Presidents of Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh Serzh Sargsyan and Bako Sahakyan.

AGBU will cover all operational costs of the center as well as startup costs in the framework of the TUMOxAGBU partnership, while the government of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic has provided the space in a historic building in the city center.

The Stepanakert program is expected to cater to 500 to 1,000 students who will participate twice a week for two hours per session, gaining 21st century skills, and studying animation, filmmaking, web development and game development, as well as supporting skills such as 3D modeling, computer programming, music, photography and graphic design.

Registration will start on the 14th of September, and students will begin their Tumo life during the first week of October. The Tumo Center for Creative Technologies is a free of charge after school program that started in Yerevan and subsequently opened a location in Dilijan. The TUMOxAGBU partnership has already opened a branch in Gyumri and is expected to spread Tumo to other locations in Armenia and beyond.

OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs will hold a meeting of Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers in September to discuss organizing a presidential meeting this year.

“The co-chairs will bring the foreign ministers together on the margins of the UN General Assembly in September. We will discuss with the ministers the possibility of holding the next presidential summit later this year,” James Warlick, the U.S. representative to the OSCE Minsk Group, told AzerNews.

Commenting on the recent escalation of tension along the contact line of Armenian and Azerbaijani troops, Warlick said the co-chairs continue to propose confidence-building measures for ensuring the ceasefire regime.

“For most of the year, the situation along the Line of Contact and Armenia-Azerbaijan border has been relatively stable. We have appealed to the sides to reduce tensions and strictly respect the ceasefire. We also continue to propose confidence-building measures that would reinforce the ceasefire, creating a more positive environment for negotiations that could lead to a settlement,” Warlick said.

Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian will speak at the Chatham House on September 10, reads a statement on the official website of the Royal Institute of International Affairs.

Minister Nalbandian will discuss Armenia’s foreign policy priorities.

He will offer introductory remarks for approximately 20 minutes, followed by an hour for questions and discussion.

Atom Egoyan’s new film Remember will premiere Sept 10 at the Venice Film Festival. The film stars Christopher Plummer as a Holocaust survivor who sets out on a path of revenge after discovering that the Nazi guard who murdered his family 70 years before is still alive and living in America.

“This film raises many issues; this is very much the last story that can be told in the present day with the characters still living,” Egoyan said in an interview with .

“The character that Plummer is playing [focuses on] that idea of people near the end of their lives still trying to find justice, and realizing that the regular channels won’t serve that, which is why he takes it on himself,” he said.

“It is a revenge film. It posits the idea that after all this time, those wounds have not healed. It is going to provoke a lot of discussion. You see how visceral the feelings are even after all this time has passed,” the director added.

Egoyan last worked with Christopher Plummer on Ararat, which deals with the impact the Armenian Genocide of 1915 had on later generations.

“It is interesting that on the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, I am making a film called Remember which deals with this issue of acknowledging the past and notions of repressed or elective memory and how we understand trauma,” Egoyan said.

A Thai court has issued an arrest warrant for a Turkish man who is the husband of a Thai suspect already being sought in connection with Bangkok’s deadly bombing, the Associated Press reports.

National police chief Prawut Thavornsiri identied the man as Emrah Davutoglu. He is facing charges of conspiracy to possess unauthorized war materials.

Wednesday’s arrest warrant is the eight issued by Thai authorities in connection with the Aug. 17 bombing of a central Bangkok shrine, which left 20 people dead and more than 120 wounded.

Prawut says that Davutoglu is believed to have been “part of a network that provided accommodation” to those connected with the bombing.

Earlier this week, police issued an arrest warrant for his wife, Thai national Wanna Suansan, whose name was on the lease of an apartment that police raided over the weekend and discovered bomb-making materials.

The Armenian Foreign Ministry has dismissed the reports on the occupation of the Armenian-populated regions of Damascus.

“According to the data of the Armenian Embassy in Syria, the reports that terrorists have captured the Armenian-populated regions of Damascus do not correspond to reality,” Spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Tigran Balayan said in a Twitter post.

Russia hopes for progress in the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.

“I appreciate the opportunity to meet with you to discuss the bilateral relations, the situation in the region and the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. This is where we are trying to reach a common ground under your leadership, the leadership of the Presidents of Armenia and Russia, as well as the Minsk Group co-chairing countries,” RIA Novosti quotes Lavrov as saying.

“I hope progress will be reached,” teh Foreign Minister stressed.

The meeting took place within the framework of Lavrov’s working visit to Baku.

As the opening of Istanbul Biennial gets closer, it turns out that there are a lot of works that refer to the Armenian Genocide and the developments that followed it.

– This year, there is a different excitement before Istanbul Biennial. People work on the biennial in strict confidence and it will be opened on September 5; though we can roughly make out what to expect, we will be seeing lots of surprising projects.

Rubbing salt into the wound

14th Istanbul Biennial started out with a comprehensive title like “Saltwater.” When the tight-lipped attitude of curator Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev and of the biennial team was added to this title, which refers to the source of life, geographical connection, Bosporus and many other themes, this event that will begin next week became even more mysterious.
Events of 14th Istanbul Biennial, which will be spread all over Istanbul, from Prince Islands to overseas, are designed with the works that have something to say about current issues and politics. As the curator Bakargiev says, Turkey has plenty of festering wounds. And this year’s biennial has the purpose of pointing at those wounds, though it cannot heal them altogether. In the interview that she gave to Blouin Artinfo on August 18, Bakargiev said: “This is almost a spiritual exhibition. These spirits come from the ethnic cleansing that carried against Armenians and Greeks.” And after “dOCUMENTA (13)” exhibition that she curated, she preferred not to involve in large-scaled projects for a while.

The sea that connects Istanbul to San Lazzaro

A great part of the biennial consists of individual presentations that are located in different places. This means, Bakargiev preferred to organize a group exhibition that consists of solo projects. Unusual venues like Trotsky’s house on Prince Islands, Rumeli Feneri, stores, boats and parking lots will be used as exhibition venues, in addition to museums and art institutions which are the usual destinations on the contemporary art route. The connection between those venues is constituted by the notions that are treated in various ways in the exhibitions and the saltwater that runs through Istanbul.

Considering that the works of Haig Aivazian, Anna Boghiguian, Hera Büyüktaşçıyan, Rene Gabri & Ayreen Anastas that were exhibited in the Armenia Pavilion of 56^th Venice Biennial and the works of Sarkis that had a solo exhibition in the Turkey Pavilion will be exhibited in this year’s Istanbul Biennial, it can be said that the saltwater doesn’t only bridges two sides of Istanbul, but also reaches all the way to Venice and Mıhtaryan Monastery on San Lazzaro Island.

As the opening of Istanbul Biennial gets closer, it turns out that there are a lot of works that refer to the Armenian Genocide and the developments that followed it. Michael Rackowitz’s work, which was inspired by the fibrous plasterer Garabet Cezayirliyan who made the ornamental work on the buildings like Yıldız Palace and Emek Movie Theater, is one of them. Tracing the footsteps of Cezayirliyan in Istanbul, Rackowitz combines his work with the remains that came from Vakıflı Village, which is the last Armenian village in Turkey. Artist Francis Alys, who lives in Mexico City, hails the bird species that no longer exist by imitating the pipes of the birds that lived in Ani district of Kars once; in this way, he also calls out to the Armenians who were forced to leave that region. Making a long-termed research on the lute player Hrant and exhibiting the conceptual sculpture that he made as a result of this research in the Armenia Pavilion in Venice Biennial, Haig Aivazian prepared a performance for Istanbul Biennial. As a part of this performance, the choir of Beyoğlu Üç Horan Church will perform a traditional song, which was also performed by the lute player Hrant, in Galata Greek Elementary School. In the project that Aslı Çavuşoğlu developed for the biennial, red dye will be produced from the insects; this is an Armenian technique that is not used anymore. Using the old building of Agos and Hrant Dink Foundation as a project venue, Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri will turn this place into a truth center by referring to the past of the building. It should also be noted that Anarad Hığutyun Building, which is the new place of Hrant Dink Foundation, is one of the biennial venues.

Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem premiered at the Revival Square in Stepanakert today. The performance was dedicated to the memory of the victims of the Armenian Genocide and those, who lost their lives in the struggle for the independence of Armenia and Artsakh.

The event was attended by President Serzh Sargsyan and Mrs. Rita Sargsyan,political and religious leaders of Artsakh.