Ella Kanegarian Göktas has a bachelor's degree in art theory and history. Graduated from Yerevan State Academy of Fine Arts in 2010 with diploma work on Art and Commerce. In 2012 founded a virtual critical autograph, available only by subscription in post-Soviet countries – «Snöb!» about consumerist culture and media. In 2015, she re-started writing articles covering art, literature, and music for local magazines and publications, later was featured in the 400th-anniversary edition of “The Wire” magazine with a first-ever article about Armenian contemporary music. Starting from 2017 curated several exhibitions, including her first exhibition of typography posters depicting Armenian alphabet by Amsterdam based designer and artist Gayane Yerkanyan about the Autonomy and Freedom («Errors») and “The Whore`s Stockings” by Ashot Avagyan, which is the first contemporary art exhibition focusing on the April war events in 2016.
Currently, Ella works on expanding her writing approaches and moving towards the essayism, scriptwriting, and playwriting. She mainly focuses on gaps of the past and the present, treating culture as a way of preserving the collective memory and traumas. Her current obsession is Sufi poetry and quote writing.
In times of instability, all you can hold on to is tastes and smells. Their stable presence may distract people from the damage of losing their homes, their jobs, their political freedom. Familiar tastes and smells make you suffer less because you feel in the comfort zone like nothing has changed.
Lost territory, lives, and cultural heritage; disturbances that can be traced all over the world and cannot yet be processed by our country. Maybe that is one of the reasons we fear changing anything perceived as part of our heritage; one of the reasons our free spirits clash with a wall of standards and traditions, which, once upon a time, were just experiments.
Pedophile clerics. Russian threats. Ineffective Western diplomacy. Education and equal rights for women. Most people are used to reading reports on all these topics in the media today. But few are aware that artists in the South Caucasus were addressing these issues on the pages of satirical magazines a century ago.
After my second week in quarantine, when I started receiving more and more calls filled with existential crises, I realized that my own crisis was not far off. I decided that it was time to find some inspiration by speaking with artists. How have they managed to stay motivated and true to their craft in the face of so many challenges?
An essay about apathy, mistrust and conspiracy
“You know, I am not a model? I am a grandma.” she noted, giggling as she works. “Just a grandma...that is not a big deal. We all get there. ”
But somehow, in the past decade, Grandma Red has become a big deal—well, at least well known. People as far away as Yerevan come to buy her candles, which they say bring luck.
“Where is our home? Can you show me?”
Faced with increased oppression in Russia, journalists look for safety in Armenia
Over the past 30 years, playgrounds in Armenia have lost out to privatization and other priorities.
Nostalgia for the Soviet Union can help some people reconnect with their youth but it holds wider risks for society.
Two Armenians are focusing on empowerment to change media’s negative queer narratives․
Writer Ella Kanegarian reflects on Armenians’ response to the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh and wider implications for society.