03 Oct 2009

Laura Palmer Foundation presents Betlemi Mikro-raioni & Fata Morgana in Tbilisi, Georgia

BETLEMI MIKRO-RAIONI

A Public-art Project in Betlemi district, Tbilisi, Georgia / 2-4 X 2009

With the participation of the artists, inhabitants, theoreticians & architects:
Vahram Aghasyan, Akademia Ruchu, Paweł Althamer, Karen Andreassian, backyardradio, Bouillon Group, Sophia Cherkezishvili, Levan Chogoshvili, Cumbogroup, Rosell Heijmen & Lado Darakhvelidze, Mamuka Japaridze, Margo Korableva Performance Theatre, Marina Khatiashvili, Nana Kipiani, Rusiko Oat, Lali Pertenava, Lia Shvelidze & Mamuka Tsetskhladze, Slavs and Tatars, Sophia Tabatadze, Sergei Tcherepnin & Gela Patashuri & Daniel Baumann, Guram Tsibakhashvili, Nato Tsintsabadze/Icomos, URL – Urban Research Lab/Gio Sumbadze & Ani Chorgolashvili, Urban Reactor/Levan Asabashvili

Curated by: Joanna Warsza


'Don't change anything, for everything to be different.' Jean-Luc Godard

'Microrayons' are the large-scale social-housing projects developed throughout the entire Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. A microrayon, or microdistrict, was supposed to be a self-sufficient unit affording its inhabitants comfort and the pleasure of living, thus realising Le Corbusier's utopia of the collectivity and harmonious cohabitation through architectural and social engineering. Paradoxically, in the old Betlemi, one of the most heterogeneous districts of Old Tbilisi, the utopian idea of an inner city both concentrated on itself and open to the world is closer to the truth. Situated on steep slopes, Betlemi never entered into capitalist logic – you won't find new luxury cars, advertisements, or even any new shops around here. Rather, everything is self-organised; even food is still conveyed via by a hand-made cable car.

The public-art project Betlemi Mikro Raioni will be a way of mapping a district through artistic interventions in its structure, where art will often blend with everyday life. Television sets will broadcast video-art, a Tamada will toast the hermaphroditic Mother Georgia, the flowers of Caucasian democracy will blossom, and the Zoroastrian calendar will be in force. The interventions of the artists, theoreticians, and architects will confront the unwanted idea of the Soviet microrayons with the romantic Betlemi quarter, as yet untouched by gentrification and neo-liberalism.



FATA MORGANA a project for Tbilisi by Agnieszka Kurant

Curated by Joanna Warsza

Laguna Vere swimming pool / Tbilisi / October 3 / 6 p.m. (entrance free)

A fata morgana (mirage) is an optical phenomenon, which results from a temperature inversion. It is happening always in the landscape, outside of the city: in the desert, on the see, on the highway. Kurant will present a possible location for Tbilisi fata morgana in one of the best and still vivid examples of Social realist architecture, Laguna Vere swimming pool, where one comes as to the city oasis, to an almost symbolic purification place. For one week the letters of the omnipresent corporate advertisement overlooking the pool, the housing projects of Vere and the Kura river will disappear. These white surfaces with a potential no-meaning will serve as a hypothetical announcement either of the return of the past or the forecast for the future creating an uncertain present. A series of mysterious posters and postcards - photographs of the swimming pool with inscriptions appearing in the sun and disappearing in shadow will be distributed across the city.

Kurant believes alien intelligence comes from Earth. Knowledge is often domesticated whereas neither knowledge nor meaning should be taken for granted. New meaning can be produced only when one takes the risk of producing complete nonsense, since the distinction between sense and nonsense can never be made with certainty. The project will act as a changing, unstable, disappearing form of generative misunderstanding.

The private view of the project will happen during the working hours of the pool, and could be attended both by the audience on the tribunes, as well as regular goers in the water.


Commissioned and part of ArtZone Festival in collaboration with Laura Palmer Foundation and Archidrome Tbilisi