This summer, Yerevan will become a vibrant meeting point for contemporary artistic experimentation as Notations Lab & Festival 2026 welcomes 65 artists, musicians, performers and researchers from around the world.
Created by Armenian creative hub hosq, the 12-day interdisciplinary programme explores the theme of Rituals, culminating in a public festival showcasing newly commissioned works at the Armenian State Philharmonia and the National Gallery of Armenia.
Blending collaboration, performance, visual art and research, Notations continues to position Armenia as an emerging destination for innovative cultural exchange.
Notations lab 2025 Photo courtesy of HOSQ Mitya Lyalin
The 2026 edition of the festival and lab is called Rituals and considers them as a practical tool for making something new. Rituals are understood here as structured, repeatable actions that shape our perception of time, space, and each other, and as a technology for building collective connection in an unstable world. Practitioners from different disciplines and different places will come together to invent new forms of connection, whether drawn from cultural memory, personal experience, or products of collective imagination that do not yet exist.
The curatorial team includes composer, pianist and songwriter Arman Peshtmaljyan, whose work with the Armenian Navy Band received the BBC Radio 3 Award for World Music 2006; Ben Wheeler, ethnomusicologist and co-founder of Mountains of Tongues label; multi-instrumentalist, DJ, and producer Hayk Karoyi, who has performed at Terraforma festival; and Venera Kazarova, whose costume-centric performance works have been shown at K21 Düsseldorf and Produktionshaus NAXOS Frankfurt, amongst others.
Notations lab 2025 Photo courtesy of HOSQ Mitya Lyalin
Armenia is a country with one of the oldest continuous cultural traditions in the world and a burgeoning contemporary scene. Global practitioners and audiences are increasingly drawn to what is being preserved and created here: music, visual culture, architecture, and a particular position at the crossroads of ancient and emerging. According to AGBU’s 2024 State of Armenia’s Cultural and Creative Ecosystem report, the country’s creative industries now account for 4.4% of GDP, nearly doubling in value since 2014, from approximately €291 million to €512 million. Today Yerevan is at a rare moment of creative momentum: a city where 6.3% of the working population is now employed in the culture sector, where independent platforms, cross-disciplinary communities, and new models of artistic production are taking shape in real time. Notations as a platform welcoming international, regional and local practitioners and visitors offers direct access to a creative community in active, open, and generative transformation.
Notations lab 2025 Photo courtesy of HOSQ Mitya Lyalin
Notations lab 2025 Photo courtesy of HOSQ Mitya Lyalin
Shoghakat MLKE-Galstyan, hosq Program Strategist, says: “hosq fosters the creation of ambitious, interdisciplinary work and connects it to the world. We’re building a platform that allows practices to deepen, that brings together artists who would never have met otherwise, and that lets the work continue long after a program ends. What makes Armenia particular is the coexistence of rich cultural memory and a vibrant contemporary scene. Artists who come here find that working in such context changes what they make, and hosq makes it possible.”
The lab will run from 20–31 July, with daily collaborative sessions, lectures by artists and researchers from different contexts, workshops, and a daily ten-minute collective rave, made legendary during the first edition. The lab’s structure is designed to keep differences visible and make the unexpected possible. A field trip is planned as part of the programme.
Notations Festival will follow on 1 and 2 August 2026, taking over the Armenian State Philharmonia with two days of public concerts, installations, performances and interdisciplinary projects created during the laboratory. The festival will showcase new work emerging from twelve days of friction, cultural exchange, and shared creative risk.
Andriesh Gandrabur, hosq Program and Vision Lead, says: “Sometimes I spend far too long deciding where to have my first cup of coffee: at home, ordering it in, or choosing one of the many cafés I like in my neighbourhood. The world has become so oversaturated with choice and complexity that our collective fatigue is erasing the ability to empathise, to recognise beauty, and to see the human being behind it all.These are some of the questions Notations Lab sets out to explore. Yerevan, at this particular moment, is a city with a contemporary creative scene forming in real time, which makes it the right place to ask them.
At hosq, we work within the ‘culture of new presence’: researching forms of interaction where communities, art groups, and individuals can recognise themselves. Notations offer space and time to discover one’s own ‘I’ through interaction with others, without competition, providing support and resources. We research sympoiesis, co-creation, art forms where individual authorship becomes collective action. Festival visitors are not passive perceivers: they take on responsibility as equal participants in the ritual. Without their conscious participation, the work loses its meaning. The beauty of Notations is that we are in the moment, together.”
Andriesh Gandrabur hosq Program & Vision Lead
In its inaugural edition in 2025, Notations took over the Armenian State Philharmonia and brought together 60 artists and 22 curators from 9 countries, including Armenia, Austria, China, Georgia, Germany, Italy, Russia, Switzerland and the UK, to reinterpret Armenian classical music through sound art, installation, performance, and digital media. Inspired by Avet Terterian’s Symphony No.3 as a source and shared ground for creation, the laboratory initiated 37 new projects, alongside a documentary film, a vinyl release, and six digital releases. The laboratory culminated in a two-day Notations Festival, where more than 1,000 visitors experienced the works at the Armenian State Philharmonia.
more information can be found at HOSQ , HERE
Notations Lab: 20–31 July 2026
Notations Festival: 1–2 August 2026, Yerevan.
Website: https://hosq.co | Instagram: @hosq.co
