EU4Culture Network Festival: City Stories, Diverse Voices - TRACES will be held in Armenia, Ijevan Community, 28-30 / 09/ 2024
The EU-funded project EU4Culture will host the Network Festival: CITY STORIES, DIVERSE VOICES – Traces on September 28-30, 2024. The event will take place in Ijevan Community. The three-day community festival will celebrate the culmination of the four-year EU4Culture project.
The festival will highlight the impact of EU4Culture activities on the cultural and creative sectors in non-capital cities of Armenia. Offering variety of activities, local and international programs of the festival will feature artwork and performances from EU4Culture project beneficiaries, local artists and stakeholders from Armenia, along with the invited artists from Georgia.
The festival aims to unite Ijevan and 18 surrounding communities, through signs as a means of communication, cultural expression, knowledge transfer and cultural identity. During three days ceramic signboard openings will take place in each of the 18 villages of the community, accompanied by celebrations, song and dance performances by creative collectives from Ijevan, Charentsavan, and Sevan communities. The signboards are more than mere markers; they are artistic expressions that tell the stories of the people and the history of the locations they inhabit.
The international program of the festival celebrates the nature, history and cultural heritage of the area. Events will take place every evening in public venues of Ijevan. They will involve four internationally renowned artists from Georgia and Armenia. Varying in mediums (sound art, performing art, new media performances, and movie screenings), these artists' interventions leave traces and signs that introduce new opportunities for reinterpreting the place.
The festival will also host a round-table-discussion, where the local and international artists will share their thoughts on the theme “The Future of Arts is in Collaboration”.
All festival events are public and free of charge
Additional information:
With a budget of €7.85 million, EU4Culture is a four-year project funded by the European Union to support the culture and creative sector with a particular focus on non-capital cities and towns in the Eastern Partnership Countries. The project is implemented by Goethe-Institut (Lead), Czech Centers, Danish Cultural Institute, and Institut Français de Géorgie.
With the support of EU4Culture the city of Ijevan developed and is implementing Cultural Strategy. The Ijevan municipality is working closely with local cultural and creative sector to create an effective roadmap, and the EU4Culture festival is the celebration of the community’s achievements. The other two beneficiary communities of the project - Sevan and Charentsavan also participate in the festival and are represented by their artistic groups.
EU4Culture Network Festival: City Stories, Diverse Voices – TRACES is implemented by Goethe-Institut in cooperation with the Institute for Contemporary Art Yerevan and the Ijevan Municipality.