Manvel Matevosyan, Echoes. Outdoor sculpture series, studio view. Courtesy of the artist. Returning for a significantly expanded second edition, Notations 2026 assembled Armenian artists and international collaborators in Yerevan for an eclectic, frenetic two-week creative laboratory, capped off by a two-day festival and exhibition.
The event is organised by hosq (Armenian for 'flow'), a unique cross-sector, cluster-based creative industries foundation that seeks to connect creators, technologists, educators, institutions and local communities through shared processes of research, making and learning, supporting the development of long-term working networks. These activities – along with practice-based research, policy work and the development of new standards and guidelines for the creative industries – place hosq at the heart of building a more resilient and future-facing artistic ecosystem in Armenia.
"When you come from a small country, and there are very few resources available in the country, people tend to concentrate on their own field," Programme Manager Lusine Mlke-Galstyan tells Loophole. "At the end of the day, we – like all human beings – want to have a human connection. We love to make this a space where different cultures meet and work together, on a personal level, and they also have a chance to present their works together."
"Armenia is not very famous for artistic residences," she continues. "We have lots of festivals, but to come and create something here together is something that we believe in. When we compare what we were like a year ago with where we are now, we can really see the changes, and it motivates us."
For this year's gathering, from July 20 to August 2, over 130 interdisciplinary artists and curators from 27 countries brought their imagination to multiple locations across the Armenian capital, headquartered at the Armenian State Philharmonia. Here unfolded a fortnight of frantic conceptualisation and cooperative experimentation, all revolving around notions of rituals.
"In modern times, we have so many rituals in our daily lives that go hidden and unnoticed," says hosq Art Director and artist Andronik Khachiian. "We wanted to show that to people, to bring back their curiosity of something that they think they know. It’s about a different quality of attention. There is no audience in a ritual, because each person involved in the ritual is a part of the ritual. Everybody is trying to connect with each other. Everybody is on the same level. Everybody is visible. At Notations, everyone is on the stage."
The fruits of these efforts – ranging from musical compositions and performance pieces to interactive, site-specific installations – were then displayed for an eager public in a short-run showcase, attracting upwards of 1500 visitors over just two days.
The interconnectivity of Notations is perfectly captured in "Echoes" tracing sounds; a group installation project led by Khachiian, in which a team of artists extracted sounds from a sculpture by Manvel Matevosyan, a participant from the previous first edition of the event. Matevosyan's work draws direct inspiration from abandoned Soviet-era industrial sites, recovering pieces of machinery and transforming them into works of art.
"I start with the details of found objects and gradually work with them until I reach a culmination," he says. "Since these factories are now abandoned, they have fallen silent. During my work, there is a lot of noise. Afterwards, when the work is done, there is a period of silence which translates into the space where my sculptures are, but we have found other ways to make them sound again. The work that the hosq artists have chosen is a continuation of that. It's very important to me to be open and to collaborate with new artists, and I am grateful for the opportunity."
Russian generative audiovisual artist Nadya Xyxu joined with seven other international artists to create lullabies, a multi-part installation exploring dreams as a universal yet multifaceted experience shared by peoples of all origins.
"In the lab, our team of artists was as international as it could be," Xyxu explains. "As a curator, I really wanted to bring the participants together around a shared theme. We eventually settled on sleep rituals, with three main parts."
The centrepiece of the installation revolved around an atmospheric light performance with lullabies, sung in different languages by lab participants. This was accompanied by custom-made, moon-shaped rocking chairs – encouraging visitors to relax and immerse themselves – as well as a collection of hanging metal constellations in the style of an infant's mobile. Other pieces included a 360-degree VR video based on a LIDAR scan of the Armenian State Philharmonia building, combined with audio recordings from the space, and an interactive pillow through which guests could listen to other people’s dreams or record recollections of their own.
Meanwhile, Russian-born Armenian artist and costume designer Venera Kazarova's Objects and Meanings performance drew parallels between everyday objects of the modern day and ancient rituals from different cultures. By presenting contemporary mundanities as exaggerated, highfalutin art, utilising oversized props of mundane objects, the project exposed the persistent underpinnings of these activities, emphasising the necessity of ritual in our lives today.
"We perform these actions every day of our lives," Kazarova explains, "but we have no idea that they are rituals with their own cultural roots. These are simple acts, but they have a background. People many years ago did the same, if maybe more symbolic or more religious. Now, it's simpler, but still it contains a link to the past. I wanted to show that there is some symbolic meaning behind them, and make people more conscious about their everyday lives."
Notations 2026 is difficult to describe without direct experience. From outside, it appears chaotic and unfocused; untethered by any grounding influence. However, behind this freewheeling, kinetic facade lies an exercise in pure creativity, in which artists of all kinds can stretch and share their particular capabilities. It is messy, but it is also energetic, unconstrained and exciting.
