obyekt օբյեկտ

an exercise for Armenia studio

fall 2019

‘There is a long history of abstract objects that one way or the other bear very specific significance to their users in relationship to a specific set of circumstances. In this case, you are asked to produce an object – or, better, an oբյեկտ (obyekt), since in Armenian (by way of Russian) this can mean physical object, a focus of study, a building, an abstract entity, and an industrial site – that relates both to your impression of our site outside of Yerevan and your understanding of this territory’s complicated past.’ exercise prompt

Under the guidance of this prompt, I drew inspiration from the Urartu (9th BCE – 6th BCE) stamps found in archeological excavations in modern day Armenia. These stamps endlessly repeat traces to tell stories, and my take on them they tell the story of urban planning as city-production in the Soviet setting, with the three zones of industry, housing, and park. Each stamp can be rolled endlessly parallel to each other to create the three main zones of the endless soviet urbanism, an Urartu-esque method of drawing of the Soviet Armenian city.