Us

Vardan Azatyan (PhD) is an artist by training. He is an art historian and translator of theory and philosophy. Since 2003 he has been teaching art history and theory at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Armenia. He has taught in a number of other institutions including Columbia University in New York, the Dutch Art Institute in the Netherlands and the American University of Armenia. His articles have been published in Oxford Art Journal, Springerin, ARTMargins and other international periodicals. He is the author of Art History and Nationalism (Yerevan: Actual Arvest, 2012) and Who Made the Revolution (Yerevan: Johannissyan Institute, 2020). He has compiled and published along with an extensive research article the Armenian translation of Ashot Hovhannisyan’s dissertation Israel Ori and the Armenian Liberation Idea. He monograph Cold War Art History: The Battle of Ideas and a Soviet Periphery is forthcoming in 2021 with Routledge. He has translated the major works of George Berkeley and David Hume into Armenian.

Siranush Dvoyan is a literary studies scholar and lecturer of Comparative Literature at the American University of Armenia. She is co-editor of Arteria (www.arteria.am), an online magazine for cultural criticism and author of numerous scholarly articles. Her research interests include the culture of Armenian communities in post-Soviet realms, new diasporic experiences and new articulations in literature. She is author of A Reading of Text (Yerevan: Actual Arvest, 2013).

Tamar Gasparian-Hovsepian is a specialist in public relations and organizational development. She was a freelance journalist and television reporter for seven years in Yerevan before moving to New York in 2006. Since then she has worked for various arts and humanitarian organizations where she focused on fundraising, development and communications. Most recently she served as the Community Liaison for Manhattan's Community Board One, a New York City government agency. Tamar holds B.A. and M.A. degrees in Art History and Theory from the Yerevan State Academy of Fine Arts and an MA degree in Urban Affairs from City University of New York.

Armenak Grigoryan is an artist, art historian and curator. In 2008 he graduated from the Yerevan State Academy of Fine Arts, the Department of Graphic Art. In 2011 he defended his PhD thesis at the Department of Art History of the Academy entitled “The Historiography of Armenian Medieval Art in the Armenian periodical Press of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.” In 2009-2010 he attended the program Cultural Project Management at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Yerevan. Armenak has participated in numerous artistic projects both as an artist and curator. In 2017 he curated the annual Festival of Alternative Art at the Armenian Center for Contemporary Experimental Art in Yerevan.

Ashot Grigoryan has a PhD in Physics and Mathematics. He studied at Yerevan State University and at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. He translated and annotated Werner Heizenberg’s Physik Und Philosophie (Hirzel Verlag, 1959) and Physikalischen Prinzipien der Quantentheorie (Hirzel Verlag, 1930). In addition to his specialization in Physics he is interested in the Philosophy of Science. In the summer of 2011 Grigoryan organized a conference-seminar dedicated to the latter field at Yerevan State University. Recently he completed an extensive research project on early 20^th century Armenian philosopher Misak Khostikian (Misak Khostikyan. David the Philosopher, Johannissyan Institute, Yerevan, 2020).

Michael Martirosyan is an artist. In 2013 he received his B.A. and M.A. at the Yerevan State Academy of Fine Arts, the Department of Graphic Art. He works in the TUMO center for creative technologies as a workshop leader and content developer․ In 2014-2015 he worked at Robert Sahakyants animation studio, then in 2015-2016 at Plexonic game development studio as an artist. He has participated in numerous exhibitions and artistic projects.

Nare Sahakyan is an art historian and curator. Currently, she is pursuing her graduate studies in Art History and Curating at the American University of Beirut. She is teaching a course titled “Art Historical Methods of Seeing” at the Medialab art educational program. She has graduated from the Institute for Contemporary Art in Yerevan with a specialization in the history and theory of contemporary art. In 2014-2017 she has published art critical essays and curated several research exhibitions in Yerevan. Her interests include the history of art history as a discipline and translation as a cultural act. She obtained her B.A. at Yerevan State University’s Department of Journalism and previously worked in the profession.

Hermine Stepanyan graduated with a BA(Hons) degree from the Department of Philology at Yerevan’s State University in 1986 and received her MA in Social Psychology in 2008 at the RA Academy of Science. She began her career teaching in village schools across Armenia. Subsequently, she went on to produce and write the educational children’s show “Galaxy of languages” at the ‘Prometey’ TV channel. She became the head editor of the educational and children’s programmes’ department at ‘Shoghakat’ TV from 2003. From 2021-2022 she produced and hosted ‘Bօօn Conversations’ at scientific-educational media company Bօօn TV.She is also a screenwriter and producer of several documentaries and animated films and an author of songs’ lyrics. Her first fairy tales’ collection ‘Fairy Tales from under the Pillow’ is in the process of being published by Zangak publishing house. Hermine Stepanyan is now the head of the Regional Programs at the Ashot Johannissyan Research Institute for the Humanities. In 2022 she directed the Institute’s ‘Photo-graphing the Past’  educational-cultural project in Yeghegnadzor.