Hovsep Meliksetyan

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Hovsep is both the given and artist name used in production and performance practice. Over the past five years, Hovsep has performed live electronic music sets, released records, and curated mixes across the Caucasus, Europe, and the United Kingdom. The work is conceived as a living, breathing entity that evolves on the road, anchored by recordings.

Born in 1998 to Armenian parents and raised in Kyiv, Hovsep experienced 2020 as a pivotal moment in the relationship with Armenia. While obsessively following the Second Nagorno‑Karabakh War, and surrounded by indifference both online and offline, Hovsep’s outlook shifted dramatically. This period brought the realisation of belonging to a specific place, of being part of a small community, and of carrying a special responsibility encoded in DNA. Years later, these reflections were shared in an essay for the 2024 Screening Rights Film Festival, written in response to Shoghakat Vardanyan’s film 1489.

Armenia has since become the central subject of Hovsep’s work: its culture, its dialogue with neighbouring cultures, and the conviction that such exchanges are vital for development. Hovsep runs a label called Hyperkavkaz, which serves the dual purpose of propelling new regional sounds and building bridges between the cultures of the Caucasus. Through collaboration and mutual support, the label seeks both common threads and distinctions.

Hovsep’s principal interest lies not in making Armenian culture sound like modernity, but in adapting modernity to Armenian culture. This perspective extends to the wider region. The first release in 2024—a compilation featuring artists from Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kabardino‑Balkaria, and Adygea—marked an exciting beginning. The premiere event in Yerevan demonstrated strong resonance among audiences. Hovsep contributed one of the tracks but regards the act of compiling the record itself as a work of art with decolonial force, serving as a blueprint for the future.

Ultimately, if Hovsep’s practice were to be described in a single word, it would be “life‑affirming”.