On 19th March 2026 a photography exhibition about the medieval Armenian capital Ani will open. This event is the closing program of a Gerda Henkel Project in Germany. The exhibtion can be visited at the Petőfi Literary Museum (Károlyi Palace). The program will also include a book presentation connected to our recently published volume at L’Harmattan on Armenian photography in Jerusalem. The opening will be followed by a 2-day international conference on the perceptions of Ani. Below you can see the program. 

Program

DAY 1 - March 19
Opening Ceremony
5:00 - 8:00 pm
Speeches
• Petra Török, Director-General of PIM
• Nándor Birher, Dean of Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, PPCU
• Sándor Őze, Head of Institute of History, PPCU /Director of Hankiss Ágnes Institute, Budapest
• Davit Poghosyan, Director, History Museum of Armenia, Yerevan
• Vahe Torosyan, Deputy Director of Scientific Affairs, Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts - The Matenadaran, Yerevan
Performance by pianist • Nare Sukiasyan, Komitas State Conservatory of Yerevan
Introduction to the Exhibition
• Bálint Kovács, Head of Armenian Studies
Department, PPCU / Junior Research Group Leader, GWZO Leipzig
• Karen Jallatyan, Research Fellow, GWZO Leipzig
• Konrad Siekierski, Research Fellow, Free University, Berlin
Performance by pianist • Nare Sukiasyan, Komitas State Conservatory of Yerevan
Book launch
• Capturing Eternity: Jerusalem Armenian Entanglements with Photography (L’Harmattan, Budapest
and Leipzig University Press), edited by Karen Jallatyan, Diana Ghazaryan, in cooperation with Bálint Kovács
• Reflections on the volume by Elke Hartmann,
Institute of Ottoman Studies and Turcology, FU Berlin; Chairperson and associate editor of the Houshamadyan project
Performance by pianist • Nare Sukiasyan, Komitas State Conservatory of Yerevan
Performance • Sahman-Grenze-Kuş by Jasmin İhraç, artist, choreographer and sociologist, Berlin
Closing Remarks
• Karen Jallatyan, Konrad Siekierski
Cocktail Reception

DAY 2 - March 20
Opening Remarks: Elke Hartmann
9:45 - 10:00 am

Session 1: The Ruins of Ani as a Nexus of Early-Modern/Modern Social Relations
10:00 – 12:00• Peter S. Cowe, Distinguished Professor, Narekatsi Chair of Armenian Studies, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, University of Southern California (UCLA)
Presentation title: “Ani’s Protean Gestalt in Spatiotemporal Transition.”
• Davit Poghosyan, Director, History Museum of Armenia, Yerevan
Presentation title: “ ‘Hnadaran:’ The Museums of Ani and Their Afterlives”
• Lenka Panushkova, Research Fellow, GWZO Leipzig Presentation title: “Scenic Science: Jaroslav Tkadlec’s Caucasus Photographs Between Aesthetic View and Documentary Record”
• Kristine Baghdasaryan, Ph.D. Student, FU Berlin / PPCU
Presentation title: “Ani and the Critique of Heritage in Khatabala”
• Chair: Hakob Matevosyan, Research Fellow, Centre for East European and International Studies (ZOiS)

Coffee Break
12:00 – 12:30

Session 2: Artistic, Civil Society Relations with Ani within and beyond Turkey
12:30 – 14:00
• Elke Hartmann, FU Berlin
Presentation title: “The Remembrance of Ani: Between Denialism, Re-discovery and Re-framing”
• Jasmin İhraç, Dancer/Choreographer/Sociologist, Berlin
Presentation title: “Choreography, Landscape, Ruins: Sensing Ani through Dance”
• Vedat Akçayöz, President of Kars Culture and Art Association, Kars
Presentation title: “New Discoveries in Ani”
• Chair: Máté Botos, Head of Department, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, PPCU
Lunch Break
14:00 – 14:45

Session 3: Pilgrimages to the Ruins of Ani
14:45 – 16:15
• Marc Mamigonian, Director of Academic Affairs, National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR), Boston
Presentation title: “ ‘Armenian City in the Sky’? Diasporan Armenians Return to Ani”

• Konrad Siekierski, Research Fellow, FU Berlin
Presentation title: “Ani: An Affective Place”

• Norair Chahinian, Photographer, Architect, Brazil
Presentation title: “The Power of Emptiness: A Personal Reflection on the Encounter with the Ancestral Homeland”
• Chair: András Bácskay, Assistant Professor, Department of Ancient History, PPCU

Break
16:15 – 16:30

Film Screening
16:30 – 18:00
The Hidden Map (2022, 50 min), Ani Hovannisian (film director), followed by a discussion chaired by Anatolii Tokmantcev, Assistant Professor, Department of Armenian Studies, PPCU

Dinner

DAY 3 - March 21
Session 1: Literature and Ruins
10:00 – 12:00
• Armenuhi Drost-Abgarian, Professor Emeritus, Former Director of the MESROP Centre for Armenian Studies at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle
Presentation title: “Ani as a Literary Site of Memory in the Middle Ages.”
• Emilio Bonfiglio, Research Fellow, ERC ‘DeLi-CaTe’, University of Hamburg
Presentation Title: “John Chrysostom in Ani? MS Yerevan, Matenadaran, MM 988”
• Bálint Kovács, Head of Armenian Studies Department, PPCU / Junior Research Group Leader, GWZO Leipzig
Presentation title: “Lost Landscapes and Ruins of the Past: Nostalgia in the Writings of Minas Bžškeanc‘ “
• Karen Jallatyan, Research Fellow, GWZO Leipzig
Presentation title: “Diasporic Ruin-Images of Ani in Modern Armenian Literature”
• Chair: Peter S. Cowe

Coffee Break
12:00 – 12:30

Session 2: The Ruins of Ani through Art Historical
Perspectives
12:30 – 14:30
• Sipana Tchakerian, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Institut national d’histoire de l’art (INHA), Paris Presentation title: “From Fieldwork to Archive: Ani through the Eyes of Nicole and Jean-Michel Thierry”
• László Daragó, Assistent Professor, Budapest University of Technology and Economics
Presentation title: “The Armenian Legacy of Tamás Guzsik”
• Christina Maranci, Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies at Harvard University, Boston
Presentation title: “The Cathedral of Ani”
• Zaruhi Hakobyan, Associate Professor at the State Academy of Fine Arts of Armenia, Yerevan
Presentation title: “Visualizing Glory: Iconography and Artistic Conception in the Tympanum Sculpture
of the Church of Erznka near Ani”
• Chair: Máté Tamáska, Vice-Rector for Research at Apor Vilmos Catholic College, Vác

Lunch Break
14:30 – 15:15

Session 3: Roundtable discussion with the Kingdom of Ani team
15:15 – 16:30
• Zaruhi Santrosyan, Sona Babayan, Armen M. Garikian
• Chairs: Karen Jallatyan and Konrad Siekierski

Break
16:30 – 16:45

Session 6: Closing Roundtable for the “Lost-but-found: Armenian Capital Ani at Contested Crossroads” project
16:45 – 18:00
• Karen Jallatyan, Bálint Kovács, Hakob Matevosyan, Konrad Siekierski
• Chair: Zoltán Hidas, Head of Institute of Sociology, PPCU
Performance by pianist • Nare Sukiasyan, Komitas State Conservatory of Yerevan

Closing Dinner