User:Asti.96/sandbox

Christopher Atamian
Christopher Atamian is a New York-based critic, writer, curator, filmmaker and translator. After a successful career as a marketing executive and content producer for leading advertising agencies and investment firms, he has devoted himself exclusively to writing, directing and curating. Among other recognition, he received a 2015 Ellis Island Medal of Honor. He has also been nominated for a National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize. An avid polyglot, Atamian speaks and writes twelve languages.

Early Life
Atamian was born in New York City to immigrant Swiss-Italian and Lebanese-Armenian parents. As a teenager, he was a top scholar at The Lycée Français de New York and Collegiate School where he was named a National Merit Scholar and placed second in the United States on the National Mathematics Examination. He then attended Harvard University(Magna Cum Laude in Literature) and the Swiss National Polytechnic in Zürich (ETH) on a Fulbright Fellowship. He is also an alumnus of USC Film School and Columbia Business School, where he earned an MBA in International Media and was the Bronfman Scholar in Democratic Enterprise two years running, the school’s highest honor. He has also received AGBU, Gulbenkian and John Harvard scholarships during his undergraduate studies.

Curator
Atamian is the co-founder and curator of Atamian Hovsepian Curatorial Practice, a gallery and cultural center located in New York City ( www.atamianhovsepian.art ). The gallery recognizes art as a transformative force and a vehicle for social change and seeks to exhibit the full spectrum of creators including women, LGBTQ+, BIPOC, SWANA and other artists and practices whose methods, forms and expressions have been unrecognized or marginalized. Since the gallery opened in 2022 he has co-curated twenty shows including David Kareyan’s New Locality and James Gortner’s Terra Incognita, and also produced numerous events, including music concerts , book signings , and performances

Film and Theater
Atamian has directed and produced short videos and films that have screened worldwide—his video Sarafian’s Desire, based on his translation from Western Armenian of Nigoghos Sarafian’s The Vincennes Woods, was selected for and screened at the 2009 Venice Art Biennale as part of the Armenia Diaspora Pavilion show titled Voulu/Obligé where it was presented along with work from other members of the Berlin-based under_construction artist collective

In 2006, Atamian co-produced the OBIE Award-winning play “Trouble in Paradise,” directed by Elyse Singer, and in 2014 the Off-Broadway play “Dear Armen” about Armen Ohanian, “The Dancer of Shamakha.” He has also directed and produced MTV music videos for singer Melissa Levis, the dance film “Psychic Data Mining” for choreographer Luke Wiley and the experimental film, For You, My Beloved Grandparents , which screened in film festivals around the world, including the 2005 Golden Apricot International Film Festival (GAIFF) in Yerevan. Prior to this, he produced and co-produced over a dozen events for the Nor Alik/New Wave Cultural Association, including the First Annual International Armenian Film Festival of New York in 2002.

Atamian is the author of several screenplays, including The Plagiarist, based on The New York Review of Books short story The Art of Falling by Viken Berberian, to be directed as a feature film by Canadian filmmaker Gariné Torossian. He also wrote and co-produced the 2020 short film Resurrection Myth/Harnoomi Arasbel directed by Ara Oshagan which was screened at the 2021 ARPA International Film Festival (Arpa IFF) and the 2020 Tokyo International Short Film Festival, and received a  [https://cdn.gulbenkian.pt/armenian-communities/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2020/07/List-of-all-winners-Be-Herd-Prize.pdf 2020 ''Be Heard! Prize''] launched by the Armenian Communities Department of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. He is currently editing a short dance film based on a poem by Shushanik Kurghinian Don’t Cry/Mi Lar, with choreography by Luke Wiley—originally presented by Wiley as a Juilliard School Senior Project in Choreography. He also directed the 2006 Psychic Data Mining, another dance short featuring Wiley’s choreography.

Translator
Atamian has translated seven books and is currently translating two more. He has received two Gulbenkian Foundation translation grants and two Pen grants. He was awarded the 2013 Tölölyan Literary Prize for his translation of Nigoghos Sarafian’s The Bois de Vincennes:

Books Translated from French to English

 * The Rosy Future of War, by Philippe Delmas, The Free Press, 1999


 * Fifty Years of Armenian Literature in France , by Krikor Beledian, 2016, Fresno State University Press


 * Trashland , by Denis Donikian, Nauset Press, 2023


 * A History of the Armenian Language, by Marc Nichanian, Fresno State University press, forthcoming in 2024.


 * Literature and Catastrophe, by Marc Nichanian, Fresno State University Press, forthcoming in 2024.

Books Translated from Armenian to English

 * The Bois de Vincennes, by Nigoghos Sarafian, Michigan State University Press, 2013


 * Ararat , by Davit Hakobyan, AGBU Books, 2022


 * Anointing, by Vahe Oshagan, forthcoming in 2024-2025

Creative Writing
Atamian’s first book of poetry A Poet in Washington Heights (Nauset Press) received the 2017 Tölölyan Literary Prize and was nominated for a National Book Award. "Into the Woods", the first poem of the book, was set to music by rock singer Ann Hirschfeld. Atamian's essays have appeared in leading publications including The New Criterion , The Hye-Phen Magazine , The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Harpy Hybrid Review , and Yerevan Magazine. He was awarded Second Prize in the Question Your Teaspoons international essay competition, co-sponsored by IALA and Oxford University for his piece As I Lay Dying: AIDS and Perec’s Endotic.

He is currently at work on a second book of poetry, My Brother’s Keeper and a novel, Manhattan Boy, both forthcoming 2024-2025.

Journalism and Criticism
In the early 2000’s Atamian co-published and edited KGB Magazine, and wrote a leading column for the French-language publication. He is the former dance critic for The New York Press and has written for leading publications including Vogue, New York Magazine, Dance Magazine , The Brooklyn Rail , The New York Times Book Review , The Huffington Post , Scenes Media, as well as a weekly column for The Armenian Mirror Spectator (including a piece on Francis Kurkdjian , a French perfumer and businessman of Armenian descent), and articles for an independent, non-profit online weekly magazine EVN Report.

He is also currently at work on a critical tome of film studies titled: “Deconstructing Ararat: Aesthetization, Nationalism and Identity in Armenian Film.”

Armenian and LGBT Community Leader
Atamian is also an active community leader. Among other positions, he has served on the founding Boards of GEN ART and The East Harlem School and was elected President of AGLA NY for two consecutive terms. Atamian also headed the Armenia Fund Junior Committee for several years and was on the board of The Brooklyn Academy’s Young Professionals organization. He was profiled in the Aurora Prize’s 100 Lives as one of the most prominent members of the worldwide Armenian Diaspora.