Have you experienced a drag performance where the artists are wearing traditional taraz or tatreez costumes? As many people of different SWANA (South West Asia and North Africa or Middle Eastern) backgrounds can attest, our communities aren’t always very accepting of queer folks. In a world where it feels difficult to hold all our identities […]

10 August 2022 | Kristin Anahit Cass

A post-Soviet factory building in the middle of nowhere. Mind-altering music. Unexpected conversations. In vibrant, immersive prose, Levon Shant Ekmekjian describes his initiation into the Armenian underground music scene.

16 July 2022 | Azad Archives

Born into a family of academics, the British-Armenian artist, Ripsime never imagined that she would one day pursue a career in the music industry. Throughout the first six years of her life, Ripsime moved back and forth between Latvia, her mother’s hometown of Stepanakert, and the US, until her parents finally settled in London.  Both […]

29 March 2022 | Hena Aposhian

I first interviewed Lena Halteh during the 2020 Artsakh War, when we were both focused on selling our creative work to fundraise for immediate aid on the ground, and creating urgent content to raise awareness, and advocate for people in Artsakh.  Looking back at our conversation, I can feel the distress we shared, as well […]

14 March 2022 | Araxie Cass

Growing up in Yerevan, Babken Sakanyan felt constrained, unable to explore their gender and artistic identities. When they moved to Berlin, they started to explore drag and other art forms. Eventually they were inspired by their drag character, Bala Bimbambum to create a world with no limits where they could explore all elements of Armenianness, queerness, art, drag, imagination, and expression.

19 January 2022 | Azad Archives

On October 1st, 2021 Amassia Niziblian, a 21-year-old Armenian-Canadian artist, debuted her very first solo art exhibition at the Hay Art Cultural Center in downtown Yerevan. Her work draws from her personal diary, as well as her Armenian identity and her experience as a woman.

06 December 2021 | Hena Aposhian

By Kristin Anahit Cass This article is done as a collaboration with Entanik, a global organization dedicated to uplifting and showcasing people in queer Armenian, SWANA, and allied communities.  In vibrant red threads on hanging sheets, clothes, and even pads, Zepure explores the shame and public rules that regulate a woman’s body. Zepure is a queer, […]

23 November 2021 | Azad Archives

borders are 1. invisible margins 2. like a necklace with a clasp too tight 3. traffic lights pulsating the color of blood 4. ruled the cause of death 5. quicksand that eat the enemy whole 6. uncertain who the enemy is 7. hours of absence turned years of absence turned decades of 8. absence 9. […]

05 October 2021 | Azad Archives

by Maryam Dilakian Mama, can you please tell meSome stories about Armenia?My daughter asksNo doubt perplexedAs alwaysBy all she knows of JamaicaHaving traveled to the islandThriceSwum in her watersClimbed her hillsHeard her songsHer father’s tongueTasted the goat and mangoFish and hard doughOxtail and sugar caneSince birth(Albeit on the island of Manhattan)And how little she still […]

02 September 2021 | Azad Archives

By Sargon Yousefian Dezag Tekkie Assimilation as  Erasure.  I’ve spent a good chunk  Of my life not understanding  What happened around me. I was wanted to pass  As something impossible.  Things were thought,  Maybe taught to be,  as circumstantial  To hide oppression.  I was cancelled,  In order to be adjusted.

18 August 2021 | Sargon Yousefian Dezag Tekkie