NAREGATSI ART INSTITUTE SHOUSHI
Naregatsi Art Institute (NAI) is a non-profit art organization established in 2000, with headquarters in Yerevan and an educational art center in Shushi. It is founded by philanthropist Nareg Hartounian, with the essential assistance of his brother Saro Hartounian and their beloved and now late father Garabed Hartounian. Named after Saint Gregory of Narek, the NAI’s main mission is to preserve and promote Armenian art, culture and spiritual values.
Naregatsi Art Institute Shoushi Center was launched in September, 2006. The Center's objective is to contribute to the cultural recovery of the city which was destroyed and is faced with enormous difficulties, as a result of the war. The NAI Shushi Center aims to be a link between all artists and art lovers in the region, by implementing educational programs designed for the upbringing of the new generation with the Armenian spirit as well as with the acknowledgement and appraisement of cultural and national values, and by enabling the young people to create freely and to benefit from professional orientation in the arts.
Naregatsi Art Institute Shushi Center is a three-storey building, emerging from former ruins, which includes a concert hall, an exhibition hall, a library, workshops, classrooms, administrative offices, guest rooms and a kitchen. It also has a large yard and a garden (with an open-air theater space) and some adjacent useful structures.
Naregatsi Art Institute Shoushi Center offers special accessibility for the physically challenged students, staff members, artists and guests, art lovers and the community, so that everyone receives equal opportunities to participate in all Naregatsi events.
The Center provides a variety of classes in music (including piano, bard songs class and choir), painting, wood engraving, photography, theater, puppet theater, carpet making, dance, recitation, English language, art therapy, computer graphics and designing. The classes are attended by a lot of children.
Various events, including exhibitions, performances, film screenings and festivities are organized along with classes, throughout the academic year. These events, preserving national values, take place not only at the Naregatsi Art Institute Shushi Center but also in Stepanakert and other regions of Artsakh. Throughout its activities, Naregatsi Art Institute Shoushi Center has implemented a series of programs with the participation of the children attending the Center, as well as artists from Armenia and abroad.
Naregatsi Art Institute also provides a venue for all those who, being from Artsakh, Armenia or the Diaspora, wish to implement their specific programs in the Centers of the Institute. Thus, for example, starting from 2007, the newly built NAI Shoushi Center is hosting the "Aram Manoukian" summer camp, which was founded in Shoushi in 2005 by Haytoug and Aida Shamlians from Canada. Every summer, said couple, along with their children Dessyl and Badrouyk, with the support of some of their relatives and friends, come to Armenia to accomplish their good mission, and they implement their unique program in the premises of the Center. (For more information: http://www.shoushisummercamp.org ). NAI Centers are always open to such devoted people and their programs, so that NAI, in accordance with its mission, may serve as much as possible all Armenians and the Homeland.
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Naregatsi Art Institute is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization registered in USA with its headquarters in Yerevan and Shushi. All donations are tax-deductible to the fullest extent allowable under the law.