In 2018 Creative Armenia and the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) joined forces to launch the Creative Armenia-AGBU Fellowships. The program was unprecedented both in its mission and its scope – operating across countries and disciplines to discover, develop, and champion visionary artists.
It was unique also in its methodology. From the beginning, a $5,000 fellowship grant was complemented by a year-long course of support in the form of career guidance, mentorships, and connections to industry leaders. Among the hundreds of mentors of the program are musicians Tigran Hamasyan and Serj Tankian, photographer and curator Shoair Mavlian, and acclaimed filmmaker Atom Egoyan.
As we open calls for the 2026 Fellowship, we look back at some of the 38 exceptional artists we have already supported – Fellows who have now become creative ambassadors of Armenia to the world. Their stories are a testament to the power of creativity, the impact of fellowship, and the enduring spirit of Armenian art.
Diana Markosian, 2023 Fellow
Our fellow Diana Markosian is an acclaimed photographer, filmmaker, and storyteller who takes an intimate and experimental approach to storytelling. Her first monograph, Santa Barbara, was published by Aperture and was selected by Time Magazine and MoMA as the top photobook of 2022. During her fellowship year, she worked on her project Father, her second book and sequel to Santa Barbara, transforming personal memory into a universal story of migration and identity.
Bei Ru, 2021 Fellow
Bei Ru is a Los Angeles–born music producer, composer, and singer-songwriter who transforms Electronic, Funk, Soul, Psychedelic, Lo-Fi, and Middle Eastern rhythms into a soundscape uniquely his own. His journey began with Little Armenia, where fragments of rare Armenian records became the seeds of a genre-bending style rooted in memory and reinvented through the pulse of LA. From international stages to film and television screens, including How I Met Your Mother, Nike, and the award-winning A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, Bei Ru continues to craft sonic worlds that blur past and present, heritage and innovation. During his fellowship year, he worked on multiple projects, including his new albums and collaborative projects with an Armenian vocalist.
Christine Haroutounian, 2022 Fellow
Christine Haroutounian, a Los Angeles-based filmmaker of Armenian descent, transforms vision, sound, and memory into cinematic experiences. Her acclaimed short film World earned the Golden Apricot Stone for Best Short Film and screened at major festivals like Rotterdam and Ann Arbor, marking her emergence on the global stage. In 2025, her debut feature, supported by the Fellowship, After Dreaming, premiered at the Berlinale and screened at the Golden Apricot Festival. Her second feature, Black Star Angel, won the top prize at the Asian Project Market and is set to begin shooting in 2027.
Olivia Katrandjian, 2021 Fellow
Olivia Katrandjian is an Armenian-American writer and journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, BBC, PBS, and beyond, spanning six continents and stories that bridge history and identity. Her first novel, The Ghost Soldier, is a prize-winning historical novel about Armenian-American artists in WWII. In her article, Like We Do Not Exist: Armenian Women Fight for Their Homeland, which she worked on during her fellowship year, Olivia writes about the Artsakh war and the roles of women during the conflict. In 2020, she founded the International Armenian Literary Alliance, which by 2025 had become a vital global platform for mentorship, translation, and the celebration of Armenian voices with chapters in both the US and Armenia.
Armen Yesayants, 2022 Fellow
Armen Yesayants is an Armenian curator and art historian who has dedicated his career to uncovering the hidden, neglected, and forgotten layers of Armenian art. Serving as the Director of Exhibitions at the Cafesjian Center for the Arts in Yerevan, he has curated numerous exhibitions, including the Armenian Pavilion at the 2023 and 2024 Venice Biennale, bringing Armenian creativity to the global stage. During his fellowship year, he has worked on developing an online platform that aims to unite the bold and innovative Armenian artists and make their works visible to the wider public.
Gayane Yerkanyan, 2023 Fellow
Gayane Yerkanyan, a visionary Armenian artist based in Amsterdam, redefines the boundaries of Armenian cultural expression with her intricate ink-on-paper typographic works. Her works, which reinterpret Armenian letters, unveiling unexpected visual and cultural meanings, have been showcased in esteemed exhibitions worldwide. Notably, she was chosen to create a site-specific typographic installation for HAYP Pop Up Gallery at the Venice Biennale in 2017, and her works were featured in the 2024 exhibition "The Way of Writing" at Museo Correr in Venice, Italy, highlighting her innovative approach to Armenian calligraphy. Besides that, as a fellow, she has worked on a book of her typographic works, decontextualizing Armenian letters and exploring their new symbolic meanings.
…and there is more where they came from. And even more to join them soon. This living movement will soon welcome five new artists, joining those already shaping the future of Armenian art. The 2026 Creative Armenia-AGBU Fellowships are now open.