You can throw stones at me and applaud me

Pink City II (as soft boys go deeper) is a journey through the artist’s inner self, an interpretation of the subconscious play of reality and imagery. Using deeply personal essays and poetic self-expression, the film explores life in the imaginary space that is designed to be shapeless, genderless, safe, healthy, and free in every way, to facilitate marginalized queer individuals, as well as people who need to escape a discriminative and violent reality.

The film is a story about the creation of a book. The book is travelling, has its inner road, which in this particular case only shapes in the preferred spaces of the Armenian author Aram Pachyan.* 

This is a poem about the homeland. If you subtract the occupied areas, whatever remains, about 80 percent. 

The text used in the video came from tourist campaign slogans used by the Gerogian government over the past several years.

Artists have used their art to protest against politics and politicians for years in Armenia. But after the 2018 revolution, many artists stopped using the tools they had developed to push their agenda—despite the fact that the new government gave them plenty of reasons for protest.

In this film, which was made in the summer of 2020, Hovhannes Ishkhanyan speaks with three artists—Karen Ohanyan, Artak Gevorgyan and Arthur Petrosyan—to find  out why they stopped protesting like they used to. And, inspired by them, Hovhannes creates his own piece of political art. 

Disclaimer: Armenian artist Artak Gevorgyan, one of the interviewees of this film, is a husband of Armenia media manager Sona Simonyan.

What do we mean by Georgian protest art or activism, How does it resemble or voice our turbulent recent history? This film highlights some participants of the artistic process and explores the topic through the interviews that express different angles. Four interviewees examine history of artistic protest through historical, cultural, documentary and artistic lenses, recall some examples and besides relevant answers sets new questions for viewers.