HAYP 12 12 12 Retrospective
12-24 December, 2018
HAYP Pop Up Gallery was born on December 12, 2014 with the aim of bringing art into the everyday environment. For the past four years, HAYP has invited artists and audiences on a journey of discovery throughout Armenia and at the 2017 Venice Biennale. Through nomadic exhibitions within private homes, street-side shops, abandoned Soviet structures and scientific centers, we have set out to engage with our environment and its various histories, communities and subcultures.
From the very beginning with “Frame of Mind: Context and Perspective”, HAYP has taken a playful and self-aware approach to the nuances of perception and how it relates to cultural and spacial realities. An arching theme has been that of communication, and in particular, how the elements of surprise and disruption can be useful tools for disarming preexisting social barriers to exchange. Exploration, play, curiosity, and an openness to the unexpected have characterized our history of projects which we honor now at HAYP 12 12 12 Retrospective.
The visitor will find a selection of works from past HAYP Pop Up Gallery exhibitions in parallel to new site-specific collaborations inspired by the theme of the Caravanserai. As a medieval meeting point for trade, cultural exchange, and refuge, the Caravanserai (or “funduk”) was a “pit stop” for travelers along the silk road. It was characterized by a common social square surrounded by niches for individual experiences. HAYP 12 12 12 features a similar structure with a cultural intersection at its heart – a place for transactions of all types (language, objects, ideas, moments)- surrounded by independent projects that explore urbanity, travel, alienation, introspection, and identity.
We do so within the symbolic space of the Armenia Market, an exchange point that first opened in 1995, ten years after the building’s construction in 1985 above the Barekamutyun Metro stop. Ironically, though the Barekamutyun Metro is the last stop headed North from Yerevan’s centre, it was the first stop built in the history of the Armenian metro system dating back to 1981. In this way we come full circle, both on the metro line and in the history of HAYP Pop Up Gallery, which, four years ago today was born from a spontaneous drive to discover roads unexplored, and investigate how art can be a catalyst for meaningful social experiences within the liminal space.
Anna K. Gargarian
Curator & Co-Founding Director of HAYP Pop Up Gallery
Assistant Curator & Content Researcher:
Hasmik Badoyan
Volunteers:
Lori Kassabian
Alice Moxley
Laure Raffi
Essays and editorials about HAYP 12 12 12 here:
- “Reflections by the Curator” by Anna K. Gargarian
- “A walk around Oda[r]isque” by Aram Atamian
- “Where is Home?” by Laure Raffy
Archive 