What images come to mind when we think of queer culture or feminist resistance in Armenia or Georgia? At the Sergei Parajanov Museum in Yerevan, image-making becomes both a refuge and a rebellion. Parajanov—filmmaker, visual artist, and Soviet dissident—crafted collages, assemblages, and cinematic tableaux that defied the norms of his time and place. His art feels deeply queer in its layering of symbolism, sensuality, and subversion.
We had the pleasure of getting a museum’s tour by our guide Jackie, who is Armenian American and was at the time in Armenia to volunteer. With her guiding comments we made the following observations.

A bird perched on a head-cage gestures towards free thought. A fish—both a Christian icon and a symbol of personal resistance—swims against the Soviet current. These images, whimsical yet weighted, offer a visual language for survival under censorship and colonial pressure.

Themes of war and memory permeate the museum, reminding visitors that the trauma of conflict is always close. A soldier’s jacket appears as both a relic and portrait—bearing the unspoken weight of history. Parajanov’s identity stretched across Armenia, Georgia, and Ukraine, complicating the narratives of Soviet “unity” with layered cultural belonging.

Through a decolonial lens, his work reveals how Soviet art structures and institutions often flattened local expression, yet paradoxically inspired artists to think outside imposed boxes. Even under suppression, creativity thrived—in fragments, symbols, and smuggled gestures.

For queer-feminist thinkers today, Parajanov’s legacy offers more than nostalgia. It invites us to ask: How do we picture freedom when it’s never been fully granted? How do images hold space for identities not yet fully seen?

In Yerevan, those answers flicker—delicate, defiant—in every collage.

We had the opportunity to meet the extraordinary writer Ani Asatrian and have a discussion with her. At just 21, Ani Asatrian introduced herself as an artist of quiet resistance. Her early work—originally titled Muteness—explored silence not as absence, but as deliberate presence. The title was later changed by someone she admired, highlighting how easily young female voices are redirected to some extent even silenced, even within creative spaces.

For Ani, silence is not passive. It is chosen, curated, even screamed. In one project, under the guise of a book launch she destroyed her own work by redacting every sentence in every book with black lines, without telling the audience of beforehand. Their confused reactions, later shared on YouTube, became part of the artwork. Only one viewer requested the actual book, offering a genuine reaction before the work faded from memory.

Now, Ani continues to explore war, feminism, and erasure. Her upcoming comic One Meme Away from War, to be shown at the Frankfurt Book Fair, addresses conflict through a visual, emotional lens. She writes on A4 paper, rearranging fragments to mirror shifting emotional states. Her handwritten poetry remains unpublished— forming a silent archive of feelings.

For Ani, writing in Armenian is like breathing, as she explained to us during our conversation in early July in Yerevan. Anything else is simply storytelling. Her work reminds us that muteness—when chosen—is not defeat, but defiance. Feminism, here, becomes the art of withholding, of resisting the need to explain, and of letting silence speak volumes.

Shushan Avagyan is the author and translator of A Book, Untitled, 2006. She has spent her career bridging gaps—between languages, between cultures, and between feminism and Armenian identity. Her work, especially as co-author of Queered: What’s to Be Done with X-Centric Art (2011), opens rare dialogues where silence (or silencing?) once dominated.

Growing up, Armenian literature offered her only two women writers—one socialist, the other largely forgotten as the wife of a writer. It wasn’t until studying abroad that she encountered feminist voices like Virginia Woolf and began to question the erasure back home. Hours spent in candlelit archives unearthed hidden women’s histories—and helped shape her understanding of silence as survival, not absence.

For her, translation is never neutral. Translating Soviet avant-garde authors into English meant navigating colonial legacies—Russian imposed on Armenian, English filtered through privilege. Estrangement becomes a tool: we are always translating ourselves, carrying foreignness into the familiar. Her childhood in Zambia, education in the U.S., and deep connection to Armenian shaped a layered linguistic identity—one aware of hierarchy, power, and misrecognition.

She resists mass publication, choosing instead intentional readership. In a world where language can betray, she trusts the translator only if trust is earned. Feminism, for her, is the work of negotiating space, refusing simplification, and asking: who gets to speak, and who gets to be heard?

In early 2000s Armenia, photographer Lucine Talalyan found herself in dialogue—not with texts, but with the energy behind them. When Shushan invited her to collaborate on a book project emerging from a 2004 women’s writing workshop, Lucine didn’t aim to illustrate the writing. Instead, she responded to its atmosphere with images, creating a free interplay between text and lens.

Shot on a Soviet-era camera, her photographs are quiet confrontations with the past. The choice of equipment wasn’t nostalgic—it was a critical gesture, using old tools to reflect on lost women’s stories, repression, and what feminism might mean in post-Soviet Armenia. The darkroom itself carried the weight of history; once, people feared developing images that could be turned over to the KGB.

Lucine remains skeptical about the label “feminist photography,” weary of how the term is misused or diluted. For her, feminism in Armenia must be rooted in lived experience—not borrowed slogans. Still, she sees any honest reflection of women’s lives as inherently feminist, especially when it resists easy categorization.

The trust between her and her subjects is vital. These aren’t distant portraits—they’re relationships, carefully built. When a camera becomes a barrier, she steps back. Her work, like her feminism, values care over spectacle. After that project, she admits, nothing has felt quite right. But maybe that’s what real collaboration leaves behind—a silence too honest to rush past.

During our discussion at the American university in Yerevan, there was a student that also offered to translate for Lucine, and we engaged in a conversation of his experience as an Armenian student being confronted with this activism and feminism through visuality and his response was that the Book untitled was very intriguing and was niche finding in the feminist library. With a group of his colleagues students he met to read the book and discuss it. Shushan commented on the student’s observations with a wink – as she rather tends to gatekeep the book and didn’t know about the young reading group – that with books the intention of the author is never kept.

Arriving in a beautiful but very hot flat in Yerevan, we had the pleasure to meet Nazik Armenakyan, Piruza Khalapyan and Sona Gevorgyan. Founded in 2011 by four Armenian women, 4+ began as a photography and documentary center—not with a rigid philosophy, but with a shared desire to tell stories that matter. Over time, they noticed a striking pattern: in Armenia, most documentary photographers are women. This observation shaped the platform into a space where women’s perspectives are central, even if they avoid labelling their work strictly “feminist.”

For 4+, documentary photography is not a fixed style—it’s a layered, flexible practice that depends on trust, time, and emotional intuition. Their photography school, opened in 2022, teaches more than technique; it encourages a way of seeing rooted in care and connection.

Trust is essential. Whether documenting communities, individuals, or crises, photographers must be invited in—not just visually, but emotionally. This takes time, and sometimes distance. Burnout is real, especially in projects that demand empathy over spectacle.

While their projects have grown, they remain grounded: they dream of having a dedicated manager and more funding, not for expansion’s sake, but to deepen their practice. Many of them balance photography with family life, yet they’ve built a community that uplifts rather than competes.

At its core, 4+ is not about defining what feminist photography should be. Instead, it shows us what feminist practice canlook like: collective, relational, and committed to telling the stories that might otherwise be missed.

The feminist library of Armenia, or short Femlibrary, is a rather strongly discussed and polarizing place. We were welcomed by Maria Zakaryan, who is a photographer, multi-media artist within the queer communities and Sona Mnatsakanyan, who has done documentary and conceptual photography. Both artists explained to us that they are not active as artists at the moment, as the market for these types of art forms are limited. They usually also come with loads of stipulations, restricting the artistic flow. They then gave us a tour of the Femlibrary and engaged in a discussion about what the Femlibrary is and how it is perceived. The reason for the controversy is the (mis-)understanding of feminism in Armenian society. It has hundreds of books on gender, sexuality, feminist and queer studies, political philosophy, political science, human rights and related fields.

Although they are open to the general public, safety is a priority for people visiting. Another issue is language, as most books about feminism and feminist ideas are not translated into Armenian. Some are written in English or Russian and the people in charge regularly put in effort of translating the books bit by bit and writing feminist and queer texts. They also organize lectures, discussions, exhibitions, reading clubs, book presentations and other events. It is important to understand that they do not view feminist activism, academia, and the arts as separate independent entities but rather interdisciplinary and inseparable causes. The place is an inviting place for discussion and exchange of ideas.

Nairi Hakhverdi not only works as a translator of Armenian Woman’s literature, but also as a director of documentary films. She notably directed Sweeping Yerevan (2020). As the name suggests, the film follows Marina Ginosyan, a woman who travels 40km to sweep the streets of Yerevan during the hours of the night. Marina risks her life dodging cars and walking the streets to earn a livelihood for her blind husband and unemployed son. We got to hear first-hand about the precarious situation the woman lived in and how the movie changed her life. How at first, Marina did not want to show her face while sweeping and then eventually became confident. She spoke directly to the camera while taking them along during her nightly routine to show the wider masses what tough and dangerous work women like her did every night when the city is asleep.

Nairi not only took a long time to get to know Marina before the filming started, but also shared her own salary with her to ensure she got properly paid – even if that money had to come out of her own pockets. The way Nairi casually phrased it, and she told us, sharing her salary with the main character of her documentary seemed like no big deal – like the only thing she could do in a country where films that egg on are becoming more and more rare.

While Nairi works at the Women’s Resource Center in Yerevan as a “day job”, she is still and foremost a film maker in her heart. Currently, she is working on a documentary that she filmed during the pandemic.

While visiting the Armenian Center for Contemporary Experimental Art we had the pleasure of receiving a private tour by Mariam Aleksanyan. Mariam Alexsanyan is not only an artist who works at the center but also an academic who is passionate about education. She is currently working on her PHD in Education Theory and History. In her role as a project manager at the ACCEA she organizes art exhibitions among other responsibilities.

While showing us some of her own artwork, Mariam shared about an art piece how she had “wanted to sell her love, but nobody wanted it except her friends”.  After all, her art works tend to be on the very experimental side: for her first exhibition she recreated a supermarket, and in her office, there are broken plates with knitting to hold them together, metal beams with inscriptions, knitted mushrooms in all colors of the rainbow and more lying around. When asked how she manages to handle all her responsibilities and have such a great creative output at the same time she only laughed She mentioned that her father was always very supportive, while her mother held her back and told her to contain herself outside the house. Mariam now recognizes that this was meant to protect her from an unkind world, but it still resulted in artworks like the broken plate. To give opportunities to young or simply innovatively creative artists, the Center for Contemporary Experimental Art supports such artists with resources, grants, and international exposure, all the while fostering partnerships between local and Diaspora communities. It promotes Armenian contemporary and avant-garde creativity by providing space for experimental works, and emphases intellectual and emotional value over commercialization. The Centre not only holds exhibitions, but also hosts international art in Yerevan, maintains a reference library and artist directory, organizes seminars and conferences, and facilitates global collaborations and exhibitions.

We had the great honor of meeting the Georgian film make, former diplomat and member of parliament Lana Gogoberizidze. Lana in her old age remains a remarkable figure full of passion and bright ideas, some of which she shared with us. She had a rough start in life: her father was killed while she was still young, and her mother was sent to a prison camp for 12 years. She grew up in the arms of friends and more distant, but loving family of similar leanings. It is no wonder that she herself became a (little) rebel too: she would encourage her class to recite critical texts at school early on and follow in her mother’s filmmaking footsteps later. A tradition that through her work and the shared experience of being a woman filmmaker – in a time where not many women would even dare to start in such an endeavor – brought her absent mother closer to her again. A tradition she passed on to her daughter as well, who became a successful filmmaker in her own right.

Even though Lana hasn’t been well enough to meet with us in person, her inner rebel, intelligence, and quick wit are still very much present. She can recite French poetry from memory — she speaks French better than English, and far better than any of us — and she talked passionately about her childhood and about the situation in Georgia today.

Coming from Switzerland it was sobering to hear about the situation that many artists in Georgia are in. We got to hear firsthand about the difficulties film makers have in getting funding especially under the new foreign agent laws making it virtually impossible to get international funding. This is accompanied by very politicized state funding that favors movies focusing on a heroic past. The changes as was recounted to us were sweeping and punishments are harsh and yet still, they continue their work. Not only receiving financial aid is penalized but also sharing knowledge and technical assistance. The laws are especially harsh regarding LGBTQA+ and material that in any way touches on queerness is broadly forbidden for minors.

During the second part of the evening, we watched the movie 'A room of my own' together with the director of the movie. The movie was filmed during the pandemic and the name may or may not have anything to do with Virginia Woolf. The film developed in a synergy between the director and the cast with part of the cast being directly involved in the writing process. It was filmed with an extremely small budget, and we learned that if you can’t pay for extras for filming, they’ll come for free if alcohol is provided.

The Heinrich Böll Foundation has become a central force in advancing gender studies in the South Caucasus, particularly in Armenia and Georgia. Yet even the word “gender” remains contested—so foreign in Georgian that the borrowed term “Gendari” is often replaced in public discourse by “women and children’s affairs,” revealing the depth of cultural resistance.

Rather than impose fixed agendas, the Foundation supports local scholars and activists to define feminism and gender on their own terms. Their publications, often anthologies of English-language texts translated into Georgian, offer critical frameworks—from Timothy Snyder to Nancy Fraser—on war, memory, and imperial legacies.

One standout project, Masculinities in the South Caucasus, was co-written by authors from Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Romania. It challenges the homogenized view of the region by exploring masculinity through diverse cultural lenses—whether in forests, cities, or social hierarchies. Written in native languages and translated into English, the book also models the care work behind collaborative feminist research.

The Foundation’s current focus on care—as practice, labor, and political framework—connects with broader themes of techno-feminism and intersectionality. Layers of displacement, economic inequality, and colonial narratives persist in the region, requiring new vocabularies and archival strategies.

In Georgia, accessing archives is expensive and fragmented. Yet, in this disarray lies a “vast web of memory,” echoing Donna Haraway’s call to reimagine knowledge not as linear but interwoven. The Böll Foundation continues to support those who dare to weave these threads—into books, into action, into futures not yet forgotten.

At Ilia University in Tbilisi, conversations around gender studies unfold against a backdrop of deep political and cultural tensions. While academic programs explore gender critically, real-world visibility often sparks backlash. A striking example was the small group of queer activists met with a counter-protest of over 100,000, largely mobilized by the Georgian Orthodox Church.

Since the 2010s, Georgia has seen the rise of modern far-right groups, importing rhetoric from both Russia and the West—despite efforts to distance themselves from Russian influence. These groups are opportunistic, shifting targets depending on political momentum. Anti-abortion movements, for instance, flare up periodically but rarely sustain public interest.

Interestingly, despite these reactionary forces, remnants of Soviet-era gender parity remain. The Soviet Union fostered strong female participation in the workforce, and today Georgia still boasts one of the best gender ratios in the sciences. Yet this legacy also contains contradictions. Beauty standards, once dismissed as anti-feminist and bourgeois, are now weaponized in neoliberal ways under the guise of empowerment.

There’s a disconnect between gender as an academic idea and gender as lived practice. Activists and scholars alike are negotiating this space—caught between imported ideologies, lingering Soviet structures, and new demands for justice. The past is not gone; it’s layered, and gender in Georgia continues to be contested at every turn.

Emerging during the pandemic in the summer of 2021, Project Fungus began as a collective of 18 artists exploring queerness through underground, collaborative art-making. Today, only five remain—many have left the group or the country entirely, driven by increasing legal and social pressure on queer communities in Georgia.

Their work, including the performance A Night on a Crossroad, has been labelled “anti-patriotic”—a reflection of how queerness is often positioned as oppositional to national identity. But as the collective argues, being queer and being connected to place are not mutually exclusive. Their manifesto reclaims the metaphor of the underground: like fungi, queerness thrives beneath the surface, unseen but vital.

Refusing external funding, especially from Western institutions that demand high visibility and narrative control, Fungus remains self-sustained. Visibility, they argue, can come at too high a cost in a context where simply existing as queer is political.

Some members, trained in Tbilisi’s arts universities, draw inspiration from Orthodox medieval iconography—reframing religious aesthetics through a queer lens. This interplay of faith and sexuality challenges assumptions about both.

As one member put it, “If your body is political, everything you do is political.” Whether in hidden galleries in the mountains or modest apartments far from Tbilisi’s center, Project Fungus continues to make space—underground, unseen, but defiantly alive.

We would hereby like to thank all the people willing to share their art, activisms and vulnerabilities with us, and for allowing us to spare a glance into their space. The trust we have been given is immensely appreciated.