The international festival of contemporary art, ARéFest, has been held in Armenia for ten years under the curatorship of Ms. Marine Karoyan and artists associated with the Institute of Modern Art Armenia (ICA). This year's theme, Metamorphosis, was chosen to reflect the life and work of Franz Kafka, one of the most influential writers of the 20th century, whose 100th death anniversary we mark this year. The festival features an exposition influenced by Kafka's themes and a panel exhibition titled "Franz Kafka: A Man of His and Our Time," organized by the Czech Centres in cooperation with the Czech Republic's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Czech Embassy in Yerevan.

As part of the Czech participation, with support from the Czech Embassy in Yerevan and in collaboration with the Czech Centre Tbilisi, a world premiere performance by Jan Malík and Jan Komárek titled "Insectum K," based on Kafka's story "The Metamorphosis," was presented by the Pulsar theatre group on May 11, 2024.

On Sunday, May 12, 2024, Czech artists joined other Armenian and international festival participants on a performative journey from the Armenian capital of Yerevan to its second-largest city, Gyumri. The artistic bus project originated in the Czech Republic, where it has been realized and organized by Studio ALTA, a cultural center in Prague since 2021. The project's curators, Petr Dlouhý from Studio ALTA and Antonín Brinda from the PerformCzech department of the Theatre Institute of the Czech Republic, were also on board, moderating the entire project.

During the trip, artists stopped at the home of the prominent Armenian artist Hamlet Hovsepyan, a leading figure in the modern Armenian art scene and a pioneer of video art. Another stop was made at the 4th-century basilica in Yereruyk, considered one of the oldest examples of Armenian architecture from the early Christian period and listed as one of the oldest preserved Christian monuments in Armenia on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Czech artists Helena Jiráková and Vladimír Havlík, along with other participants, staged two group performances in and around the basilica. In Gyumri, they visited cultural and educational institutions and performed a piece led by Nguyễn Mỹ Ngân (Mor Wen) from the Czech Republic.

The festival with Czech participation continued in Yerevan, where on May 13th and 14th, performances and artistic appearances were made again by Mor Wen, Helena Jiráková, Vladimír Havlík, Antonín Brinda, and Kateryna Mamchur, a student from Ukraine currently living in Prague and studying at the Academy of Fine Arts.

The Czech participation in the ARé Festival 2024 was made possible thanks to the support of the Czech Embassy in Yerevan, the Czech Centres, and funding from the National Recovery Plan, the Czech Ministry of Culture, and the European Commission's NextGenerationEU program.

Photographs of the performances by Czech artists are published on our Facebook profile.