Sunday, June 2, 2013
Sona Abgaryan was born in 1979, in the city of Berd, Armenia. Her work was first exhibited in 1998, during the Artists Congress at the Painter’s Resort House in Dilijan. It was an installation, or perhaps a performance. She had hang envelopes from the trees with the same message inside, “Save yourself.” It was followed by other exhibition by her called: “The Crazies of Body and Soul”. In 2001, with few girls Sona formed a rock band and was the author of all the lyrics as well as of the name for the band. In two years they split off. In Armenian reality a 'girl band' as such was an extraordinary phenomenon, and it had generated a lot of anger. With the same team, they had started a TV show, "Underground," but it again had a short life. It was broadcasted only twice and then was pulled off the air since it wasn't commercially viable. The show was about a group of girls rejecting the reality and wanting to live in underground. This show was also presented in “The world is you" Summer Art Festival, Vienna, Austria in 2001.
 
In 2007, she started to work at a school where she was in charge of the Film and Photo department. In 2009, together with a group of artists, Sona initiated "Rusty Pumpkin" Annual Alternative Media Festival. The idea was to launch a new, alternative platform where people from different age groups and with different professional background could submit their films and videos regardless of the narrative, form, length and the professional quality. Since 2012, Sona works at the Contemporary Experimental Arts Center in Yerevan and is in charge of the Art Department. In exhibition called "Crisis", she presented her recent video, "About," and "The Anthem of the Crisis" project, which illustrated Svetlana Antonyan's photo story.
 
“The themes of my works were always different in different stages of my artistic life, but one element has always been dominant in all my undertakings - the element of game. For me art is a game, which sometimes doesn't have a happy ending. Now for me, it is a kind of fairy tale with psychological, social and political narratives.”
 
At Gallery Nectar in Tbilisi, she presented video works of few artists, who have different professions and who in the past did not have any relationship to art. She also presented the works of emerging artists and later discussed the impact of political situation on contemporary art.
 
Residency stay wasupported by Open Society Institute, Arts and Culture Network Program.