While most of our activities and funded programmes take place outside of Portugal, we remain committed to sharing Armenian culture with the Portuguese public. During 2018 we are involved in several initiatives.

For this year’s “Jardim de Verão” (Gulbenkian’s  Summer Garden) we invited, to play for the first time in Lisbon, the renowned jazz player Artyom Manukyan. Joining him on stage will be pianist Vardan Ovsepian and drummer Christian Euman. The three musicians will mostly play compositions from Artyom Manukyan’s debut album “Citizen,” along with brand new musical arrangements by pianist Vardan Ovsepian. Together the three artists will bring exceptional multi-dimensional compositions to life at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s outdoor amphitheater on 21 July 2018.  Find out more about this concert by visiting the Jardim de Verão page.

We supported the publication of, Arménia: Povo e Identidade (Armenia: People and Identity), written in Portuguese, by two well know Portuguese authors: António Loja Neves and Margarida Neves Pereira. This book, provides a brief introduction to Armenian history and culture, and is divided in four parts: history, culture, identity and the links between Portugal and Armenia. The book is currently available for sale throughout Portugal.

An Armenian language course is being organized for the academic year 2018-2019 by the Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa in collaboration with the Associação de Amizade Portugal-Arménia. The Armenian Communities department will contribute towards the hiring of the teacher that will lead the course.

Within our Short Term Conference and Travels Grants programme we awarded three applicants from Armenia with travel grants to attend the VII International Summer School-Contemporary world through gender lenses: new challenges to women’s movement. The course took place in July 2018, in Ponte de Lima, Portugal, organised by the Ivanovo Center for Gender Studies in collaboration with the University of Fernando Pessoa. This is in addition to several scholarships we give to university students from Armenia studying in Portugal.

Finally, we often receive guests at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and are happy, when our schedules permits, to meet them and explain more about our activities. Last month, for example, we hosted a small meet and greet with a group of 27 participants, from five different Armenian Universities taking part in the Training project BOOST “Marketing and Cultural Challenges in Higher Education Internationalization,”, organised by the Instituto Superior Técnico.  After the meeting, the group enjoyed a cultural afternoon visiting the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum and the Calouste Gulbenkian Garden.