By Melanie Nakashian

A home can imply many different things for a woman. It may be the sphere where she exercises power, where she dominates. It may be the prison where she struggles, that she yearns to escape. It may be a nest for peaceful sanctuary or a box of painful secrets. It could be all of the above.

The most private matters of womenwere opened for public discussion from April 8 to 18 at a house-turned-gallery in Kond, one of Yerevan’s oldest districts overlooking the rest of the city center. For these 10 days, a temporary art exhibit titled Lips of Pride aimed to foster conversation by confronting the taboo issues of women’s sexuality, and served to amplify the voices of Armenian women who are silenced by collective shame.

Lips of Pride was the sixth exhibition organized by the nomadic HAYP PopUp Gallery since its founding in 2014. It was also the first event to take place at the new Frigi Jiraff & The Echo Museum, a house on Frik Street that now operates as a recording and art studio.

This particular topic was inspired by the Armenian colloquial term for labia (ամոթաշուրթեր /amotashurter) which translates to ‘lips of shame.’

“The words you apply to something influence the way you think, and we wanted to explore that,” said Charlotte Poulain,who co-founded HAYP along with curator Anna Gargarian, from France and the US respectively.

Throughout the 10 days, a mix of several hundred locals, diasporans and other internationals came to explore the work created by over 25 Armenian women artists, the vast majority of whom were born in Armenia. Mediums ranged from photography and video to paintings, street art and recycled art to interactive installations.

In addition to the gallery being open to visitors 10 hours per day, a total of 10 events were also organized, including dance performances, workshops and discussions with experts – all of which were free, and presented in both Armenian and English.

Frigi Jiraff was often bursting at the seams during the evening events, with around 300 in attendance for opening night alone. 100 people attended the first discussion on Postcolonial Feminist Geopolitics with guest speaker Paniz Musawi from Iran. Another hundred, mostly locals, showed up for a panel on Shame & Sexuality. Experts on this panel included psychologist Lilit Avetisyan from the LGBTQ rights advocacy organization PINK Armenia, sexologist Dr. Narine Nersisyan and Ani Jilozian from the Women’s Resource Center․  Jilozian talked about linguistic discrimination in the Armenian language.

Several in attendance during the opening event expressed hope for a more diverse crowd, noting that everyone present seemed to already agree on the issues being discussed. “I love the project but I really wish that they could reach the women who would say ‘no’ to this,” one Syrian-Armenian man commented.

But as word about HAYP spread through Kond and beyond those who heard about it online, a truly unpredictable range of people turned up to see what all the hype was about. Though it is certain that not everyone who came agreed, the organizers were pleasantly surprised by how open people were to the topic.

Gargarian recounted one of their first days when they had “several older couples come in, an older man and his granddaughter, and two older women who came over literally in their bathrobes and slippers.” A nine-year-old boy named Gevorg wandered in and returned nearly every day, sometimes staying for hours at a time. Two soldiers in uniform even passed by and, though seeming skeptical at first, turned out to be eager to discuss the issues and returned later for coffee.

Lips of Pride opened one day after the conclusion of Women’s Month,which stretches from International Women’s Day on March 8 to Armenia’s Motherhood and Beauty Day on April 7.

This scheduling was intentional, both to make the statement that the conversation about women’s issues should not be confined to an arbitrarily designated month, as well as to pose the question of how that month is commemorated specifically in Armenia.

Seda Manucharyan, a 19-year-old student from Yerevan, argued that Women’s Day in Armenia has become a “commercial holiday” about nothing more than buying flowers for women and girls, whereas it should be a time to address sexism and gender stereotypes.

“The government hangs nice banners and flowers all around the city… but there’s a lack of deeper meaning in any of those actions,” explained Manucharyan. “NGOs try to do the work [that the government should be doing] by speaking up about the issues, but the impact they have is not that big.”

Most believed that Lips of Pride played an important role in raising these issues. But naturally, not all felt the same. One 23-year-old woman, also from Yerevan said, “This exhibition is not important. What’s important is that there is a war going on right now.”

Beginning on April 2, violence over Nagorno-Karabakh escalated to a level unseen since 1994. In this mood, HAYP considered postponing Lips of Pride but ultimately decided to stick to the original dates. Several factors informed this decision, such as the announcement of a ceasefire on April 6.

But perhaps the most powerful reason for keeping on schedule was the following: “Arts and culture should still happen in peacetime or in wartime,” Poulain explained, “and there is this idea that it’s even more important in times of war.”

One highlight of Lips of Pride was the interactive Wall of Shame (Ամոթապատ/ Amotapat), created by Bella Shahnazaryan. This installation was located in its own windowless room which individuals entered one-by-one and anonymously wrote about a personal experience of shame on the back of apostcard featuring 1920s French pin-up models.

Stories were not limited to sexuality but also included issues of lifestyle, emotion, abortion, assault and abuse. Both men and women participated.

Shahnazaryan explained that writing these anecdotes produced a cathartic effect. Reading those of others produced a feel of being less alone in one’s shame.

“In Armenia, a lot is happening in secret. Everyone has a story and it’s not easy to hide. It’s like wearing a mask,” said Shahnazaryan. She also mentioned that societal shame is even more powerful elsewhere in the country, suggesting that the Wall would look quite different if set up outside of Yerevan.

Mischa Babak Rad, a 21-year-old from Tehran who was a back-up dancer in the closing evening’s performance, felt that the Wall was empowering. “The name is ‘Wall of Shame,’ but it’s not about shame,” she argued. “It’s about pride. It takes pride to be able to write about these things, especially in a place where people are scared to talk about this.”

Essentially, the project provided an opportunity for all to re-write the narrative about Armenian women, challenging the one that society has already constructed – much like Lips of Pride as a whole.

The Wall will remain at Jirafff, and the postcards will soon be digitized onto a website open to further contributions.

Gargarian described the intention behind each carefully curated area of the home, a two-story building with plenty of outdoor space.“Each installation in each specific room is meant for that space,” she noted.

For example, in the kitchen, an installation by Oksana Mirzoyan invited visitors to join the gossip that often occurs around the table, complete with a spread of fruits symbolizing different aspects of sexuality and an audio recording of women shaming other women – an act seen as internalization of patriarchal judgment.

Along the stairs leading up to the more quiet space that would be a bedroom, a series of paintings by Gayane Bakhudaryan featured a nude woman lying in her bed, portraying a deeply intimate and melancholy state of reflection.

The walkway leading up to the front porch of the home was lined with three larger-than-life-size street portraits by Anush Babajanyan. The portraits featured middle to advanced-aged local women whose unusual, bold fashion styles defy social norms. “These women are not afraid of who they are,” said Poulain, “so we wanted to put this in-your-face message right in the entrance.”

On the front porch, visitors were welcomed with Sona Manukyan’s piece made of distorted metal cans that once held baby milk powder. This came with a message against putting people into boxes,a message about individuality in the context of a collective exhibit of women artists.

Even the photo series in the bathroom was full of meaning. “Before digital photography, women photographers often developed their photos in bathrooms if they did not have studios, especially in Armenia,” explained Gargarian.

On another level, the bathroom’s photos werepart of a larger project by Nazik Armenakyan that followed the lives of transgender women sex-workers. Selected pieces depicted the processes that happen in the bathroom, such as putting on makeup and shaving.

Gargarian noted that some had questioned HAYP’s decision to include transgender women in the exhibit. “Transgender women are women. That’s how they identify,” she said. “We’re trying to include a definition of gender that is multi-faceted, not just a binary model of a woman verses a man.”

Multiple members of the LGBTQ community, however, expressed a bit of disappointment with the stark contrast of masculinity and femininity in the rest of the exhibit, citing a Ruzan Petrosyan’s photo series of a woman dressed in drag with a caption that posed questions about one’s ‘feminine state’ versus one’s ‘male state.’ Some perceived this as emphasizing the binary rather than the idea that there is more about gender performance than the oppositional play between two extremes.

“As someone who identifies not as a woman but is read as a woman, I was a little disappointed coming here and seeing a lot of cisgendered portrayals of what a woman is,” said 23-year-old Nikole Shahbazian from the US.

Another recurring criticism pointed to the lack of body positivity, as seen in the artwork’s portrayal of femininity as very body-specific, representing mostly thin women. This begged the question: what do different body sizes and shapes mean for femininity?

At the same time, for some, Lips of Pride was more than enough to digest. One man, a tour guide from Vanadzor, thought that the intimacy of the artwork was difficult to understand because he was not a woman. He also said that although HAYP was providing a “great opportunity for locals, it seems little idealistic.”

Another man from Yerevan, researcher Aram Grigorian, argued that “the people involved in [women’s rights advocacy] are very biased” – yet even he couldn’t stay away. He returned at least three times, he said, for the conversation.

It is precisely in this mix of reactions that Lips of Pride proves its impact: the number and diversity of people who showed up to this unprecedented eventmade it clear that a large segment of Armenian society, reaching far beyond the typical audience one might expect, feels the need to confront the repressed topic of women’s sexuality and associated shame.

Using art to bring these private issues into a public space, HAYP sparked a much-needed discussion that has not ended with the closing of the exhibit. Where it goes from here remains to be seen.

P.S. This project was made possible by the sponsorship of the Swiss Development Fund, CUMA Lab, and Armenian International Women's Association."

(Melanie Nakashian currently lives in Yerevan. She is from New York and has been involved with various international political, media and environmental organizations.)