Welcome the 2026 Creative Armenia-AGBU Fellows: 5 exceptional artists driving a powerful movement for Armenia's creative future.

5
FELLOWS

$5,000
FUNDING

Meet the Fellows

Garush Melkonyan

Visual Artist

Born in Abovyan, Armenia, Garush Melkonyan is a visual artist whose work blends experimentation with research-driven storytelling, engaging with multiple languages, geographies, and systems of meaning. His film Cosmovisión, filmed in Armenia, has been presented across five continents. During the Fellowship, he will work on the post-production of his video project.

Joseph Bohigian
Composer, Musician

Joseph Bohigian is a composer and performer whose work spans acoustic chamber music to experimental electronic music, exploring memory, cultural reunification, and the Armenian diaspora. Combining research, storytelling, and technology, he creates works that connect Armenian musical traditions with contemporary forms. During the Fellowship, he will work on his multimedia composition for voice, duduk, and electronics ensemble.

Ophelia Harutyunyan

Filmmaker

Ophelia Harutyunyan, a filmmaker with over a decade of experience, has worked on both fiction and documentary films that were featured at the Venice Film Festival, Sundance, and SXSW. She now focuses more on personal and fiction film projects. In her new short film, which she will develop during the Fellowship, she will continue exploring Armenia, Artsakh, and the American-Armenian experience.

Armen Papyan

Musician, Sound Designer

Armen Papyan is an artist who works across music, film, and sound design, and has co-founded the project Saghsara, a documentary-musical project dedicated to discovering and reviving Armenia’s cultural and folk music heritage. Based in Armenia, he runs the post-production studio Cinesonic and continues to develop his musical and cinematic projects. During the Fellowship year, he will focus on completing his band’s first album.

Lika Zakaryan

Writer

A writer and journalist, Lika Zakaryan documents Artsakh’s culture and displacement while preparing to pursue a PhD in anthropology and history, continuing her creative and academic exploration of loss and belonging. Her work centers on storytelling as a means of preserving memory, identity, and collective experience. During her Fellowship, Lika will work on her book centered on the lives and stories of Artsakh people.