A1

Learning from the A1

Streets: Social
B2 Exchange and B2

Knowledge Production
Lydia Matthews

Streetwise: Discover Eliava Project “harmonious” – and yet regrettably over-

culminated during the first two weeks determined – recent urban developments
of October 2012. A grassroots, multi- within the city of Tbilisi and beyond.
disciplinary, cross-cultural and site- Eliava has its own radically different
specific public art laboratory, it language and soundscape, a distinctive
aimed to explore the unique character system of topography and routine
of Eliava bazaar, of one of the last behaviour patterns, colours, smells,
remaining open air markets in Tbilisi, tastes;­ even its own dream life.
Republic of Georgia. The project Typically, however, most Georgians
consisted of an open-ended exchange merely tolerate its loud car horns
between Georgian and North American and toxic, dusty grounds, dismissing
artists and curators, as well as it as an “old-fashioned” commercial
Eliava’s community members, and took site where people reluctantly go to
the form of an evolving contemporary purchase inexpensive construction
art exhibition, a series of art/ materials, car parts, fresh produce
design workshops in various cultural and used clothing, often bartering
and educational venues, and a day- with vendors and automobile mechanics
long open house Streetwise: Discover without the constraints of fixed market
Eliava Festival at the marketplace. The prices. Until now, no one seemed
overall project provoked the following interested in focusing on the inherent
questions: What forms of knowledge can value, unique social conditions and
artists, designers, scholars, students aesthetic potential of this public
and local citizens use to resist the arena, so the Streetwise: Discover
status quo and re-envision their Eliava project catapulted artists and
environment? How can Eliava bazaar’s designers to conduct research and work
complex condition inspire creativity, in collaboration with local merchants
while simultaneously being re-shaped and shoppers. By launching what is
into a more vital, socially just or intended to be an ongoing project, the
ecologically balanced place? participants transformed this urban
Eliava bazaar is well known locally space by revealing its eccentric spirit,
and yet strangely anonymous. Established highlighting both its complex existing
during the mid-1990s, it preserves realities and rich potential for various
the chaotic and spontaneous character cultural activities.
of that time, harbouring a resilient, The initial concept emerged out of an
informal community. Its very nature intensive workshop that I ran in March
acts as a perpetual protest against 2012 in the Georgian cities of Tbilisi
aesthetically sanctioned, seemingly and Batumi. Having worked periodically

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 in Georgia for seven years, the Open One curatorial proposal initiated by
Society Georgia Foundation commissioned Nino “Chuka” Kuprava, a long-time resi-
me to develop an educational cultural dent of the Eliava neighbourhood, was
A1 programme that could help bolster to establish temporary “artist-in-resi-
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this post-Soviet region’s curatorial dencies” in Eliava market. Chuka teamed
infrastructure. In response, I invited up with local arts professionals Tamta
Amsterdam-based design curator Joanna Shavgulidze, Sophia Lapiashvili and Tam-
van der Zanden and Roomservices (the ar Janashia to co-develop the project.
Swedish/Turkish urban design collective From March to October, I worked closely
B2 of Otto von Busch and Evren Uzer) to with this curatorial team as they for-
B2
collaborate with me, in consultation mulated an ongoing process to inspire
with Georgian artist and advisor Nikusha cooperation between local and interna-
Chkhaidze and the Open Society staff, tional artists as well as workers within
which included artist Ana Riaboshenko. the bazaar. The curators encouraged sev-
Workshop participants included Georgian eral Georgian artists to create site-
artists, designers, students, musicians, specific projects: Andria Dolidze re-
entrepreneurs, anthropologists, art sponded by focusing on the nature of day
writers, and curators. Together we dreaming within this unique workplace;
explored a wide range of aesthetic the Acoustic Music Studio of the Ilia
theories and contemporary creative State University (Nazi Chavchavadze,
practices in the public sphere from Khudji Davituliani, Dato Kikabidze, Gio
around the world. Sumbadze) transformed Eliava’s complex
Through group role-playing, soundscape into an audio-visual score;
brainstorming and inventorying and Anna Gzirishvili and Nino Khurosh-
exercises, we encouraged participants to vili, two students from the Tbilisi Art
collectively prototype projects based Academy who attended the Open Society
on what I call an ethic of “curating workshop, collaborated with car mechan-
as social practice”, namely: producing ics to design the Eliava Terminology
events that assemble diverse groups Guide: An Illustrated Dictionary About
of people to co-create public events, Car Parts. Anna and Nino collected sto-
especially those that can be realised ries and sketches from the car mechanics
using zero to low budgets. Such projects regarding the Russian names of automo-
deliberately network, trade on and bile parts and repair methods, translat-
hybridise the latent cultural capital ing them to reveal the deep linguistic
and easily accessible material resources politics and narrative poetics embedded
located within people’s own communities. within visual signage found throughout
Working in multidisciplinary teams, Eliava’s automobile garages.2
participants identified urgent concerns As the Georgian curatorial team inau-
they shared in their daily lives – from gurated their project, I suggested that
the decimation of Georgia’s cultural we could augment the scope and visibil-
heritage through globalisation and ity of their efforts by securing finan-
governmental mismanagement to the cial sponsorship from the United States
social malaise of unemployment to Embassy and the Curatorial Design Re-
imminent ecological disasters. They search Lab at Parsons The New School for
then developed original site-specific Design to invite eight U.S. artists and
curatorial platforms based on the designers with long-standing street-ori-
belief that we all have the capacity to ented practices to come to Georgia and
reshape our contemporary environment work directly with the local cultural
and design more sustainable life community in response to Eliava, thus
patterns for ourselves, rather than seeding new ideas, methodologies and fu-
waiting for others to do this for us. ture residency opportunities. We organ-
Since participating in this initial ised public art and design lectures and
1. The Georgian Textile Group.
workshop, several groups of participants workshops in various schools, galler-
2. Johanna Poethig with students from Tbilisi
have realised at least three of their ies and museums over the course of the State Art Academy.
proposals on the streets of Batumi and 10 day period the U.S. artists were in 3. Yarrow Slaps and Max Machaidze.
Tbilisi.1 Tbilisi. Our cross-cultural curatorial 4. Artists and visitors felting.

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 team paired these Americans with their patterns as well as working with book
Georgian counterparts who shared simi- designer Anna Gzirishvili to gain
lar aesthetic interests and professional permission to create a site-specific
A1 practices, while also involving students mural of a climbing grapevine on the
A1
in the fabrication of their work for the defunct spiral parking structure ad-
culminating Streetwise: Discover Eli- jacent to the market that was once
ava Festival so that a new generation the domain of Georgia’s Parliament;
could gain first-hand experience of the • Video artist Gabby Miller playfully
creative potential of Eliava bazaar. The cast local vendors as the stars of
B2 U.S. artists and their Georgian partners her footage, while they collaborated
B2
included: with her to create basic green
screens, onto which Miller later
• Muralist and arts educator Johanna superimposed images of trains moving
Poethig,3 who worked with Elie Valaite through the Vietnamese countryside
and other Tbilisi State Art Academy – a mise-en-scène that collapsed
Students to create painted sculptures local and global contexts and pointed
made from up-cycled damaged tyres, to the transnational flow of goods
conceived in collaboration with that make their way into Eliava.
Zakrho, a tyre vendor at the market. Collaborating with owners of Eliava’s
Zakrho suggested lion and eagle electronic equipment businesses, they
imagery for the “Tyre Totems” installed these experimental videos
that he associated with the power so they were subtly screened on
of good luck, and eagerly helped small video monitors for sale in the
construct and situate the totems on marketplace;
the roof of his kiosk. Since then, • Laurie Lazer of the Luggage Store
the art students are continuing to Gallery’s “Tenderloin National
work with Zakrho on a large-scale Forest Project”6 shared ideas with
children’s playground they have named Tbilisi State Art Academy students
“Tyreland,” located adjacent to the about how to transform a filthy
market; city alley into a lush urban green
• Hip hop musician Yarrow Slaps, who space. At the Eliava Festival, she
collaborated with Georgian rappers offered spontaneous appointments at
Irakli Magradze and Max Machaidze her “Office Ideas” to advise market
for several weeks in advance of visitors how to realise projects that
his arrival, co-writing lyrics and they dream of doing in the future;
comparing musical styles. Together • Designer Laura Sansone worked with
they performed a spirited “free- leading artists from the Georgian
style” concert alongside Poethig Textile Group, La Maison Bleue Studio
and team’s tyre totems during the and The State Silk Museum, as well as
Festival.4 For over two hours, they Eliava’s local farmers, continuing
had the exceptionally diverse, multi- Sansone’s “Mobile Textile Lab” (in
generational market crowds dancing to which Sansone and her Parsons design
their rhythms. Inspired, the famous students create a pop-up booth at
Georgian poet, Kote Kubaneishvili, New York City’s farmer’s markets to
performed an impromptu spoken word demonstrate traditional dyeing tech-
piece, and the official manager of niques and call attention to the val-
Eliava gave a classic Georgian toast ue of local material sourcing). For
that encouraged future cultural the Eliava project, this transnation-
events and thanked the participants al team of textile artists exchanged
for proving that “miraculously, fibre dyeing techniques using harvest-
people from all walks of life can ed fresh produce from farmers’ stands
recognise they walk on common ground at Eliava, and then collaborated with
5. Georgian Think Tank.
6. Ricardo Richey’s mural on a parking structure. right here”; passers-by to co-create a felt blan-
7. Gana Think Tank and students. • Renowned graffiti artist Ricardo Rich- ket that “cross-pollinated” naturally
8. Gabby Miller’s embedded videos. ey (a.k.a., “Apex”)5 spray painted lo- dyed yarns gleaned from both U.S. and
9. Ricardo Richey painting a car. cal residents’ cars with bold graphic Georgian farms, thus creating a forum

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 for discussing the links between Tbi- an active workshop space and staging
lisi and its surrounding countryside ground for planning off-site events. By
as well as between crafting and com- the time the Streetwise: Discover Eliava
A1 munity-building; Festival took place, the strong sense of
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• Ghana ThinkTank (represented by art- risk-taking and the pleasure that comes
ists Christopher Robbins and Aaron from subversive play surprised and de-
Krach) conducted research by subvert- lighted many audiences. They had co-de-
ing the conventional power dynam- signed a platform on which contemporary
ics between those who are assumed artists, students and art enthusiasts,
B2 to “need help” (i.e., the develop- commercial vendors, car mechanics, farm-
B2
ing world) and those who define them- ers and local shoppers could discover
selves as the appropriate “helpers” each other’s skills and sensibilities,
(i.e., first world countries). In Tbi- dispensing with their stereotypes and
lisi they worked with local artist preconceived notions of “The Other”.
collectives (Fleet Group, Bouillon Through their dynamic exchange, they
Group, Urban Reactor, students and found themselves rediscovering, and – in
staff from the Centre for Contempo- a small but significant way – revitalis-
rary Art Tbilisi) to form a Georgian ing this unique, under-valued environ-
Think Tank charged with solving U.S. ment by diffusing its daily tensions and
problems that they had gleaned from envisioning a new set of social and aes-
members of the Georgian diaspora liv- thetic relations.
ing in New York City. At Eliava, they
orchestrated The Unlikelies: A People Notes
with Problems Sculpture in which com-
1
Along with the “Streetwise: Discover Eliava
Project”, realised proposals included the
plete strangers were awkwardly united
August 2012 “Batumi Backyard Histories
by a wooden sculpture, onto which one Project” featured in the Artisterium V
participant penned a unique problem exhibition (http://www.georgianews.ge/
they were facing while the other per- arts-a-culture/10659-unearthing-hidden-
son wrote a proposed solution. backyard-treasures.html), and “The Rhythm
In Yourself” a public dance lesson project
This multi-faceted cross-cultural knowl- that took place in the underpasses of
Tbilisi, featured within GeoAIR’s Spaces.
edge exchange gained more local and in-
Undergo. The Parallels public art event
ternational visibility by being featured in May 2012. (http://georgien.blogspot.
in the October 2012 Artisterium V,7 an com/2012/03/open-call-for-artists-geoair-
annual international art event curated project.html).
by Magda Guruli with works by artists 2
Eliava Terminology Guide: An Illustrated
from over 15 countries. Artisterium V’s Dictionary About Car Parts can be viewed
theme was “The Protest that Never Ends”: here: http://www.issuu.com/anidanini/docs/
issuu.com
it showcased research-based artistic re- 3
Johanna Poethig’s visual and performance
flections on “what is worth protesting work, as well as writings on public art
against and how a creative work can be- practices, can be found at: http://
come a catalyst for change.” Guruli had johannapoethig.com/
learned of our budding project through 4
The Georgian MTV “Music Box” programme
her own participation in the Open So- filmed the Streetwise: Discover Eliava
ciety workshop, and she invited us to Festival, and featured this cross-cultural
hip hop performance, see: http://www.
participate so that an international art
youtube.com/watch?v=CYhuovLj1zY&feature=re
audience could learn about the complex lated
realities of the market. At Artisterium 5
To see other similarly spirited works by
V’s opening at the Tbilisi Art Museum’s Ricardo Richey, see: http://theapexer.com/
Karvasla Art Gallery, the U.S. and Geor- murals/
gian artists created a makeshift “mar-
6
To learn more about The Tenderloin
ketplace” where they displayed works National forest, see: http://www.
luggagestoregallery.org/tnf/ 10. Tenderloin National Forest, San Francisco.
and discussed their aesthetic practices 11. Nino Khuroshvili’s Eliava Terminology Guide at the auto body shop.
7
Artisterium features a different theme
with gallery visitors, inviting them to each year; its various catalogues can be 12. Laurie Lazer’s Office of Ideas.
the Eliava Festival the following week. downloaded from its web archive: http:// 13. Zakhro and his son at his shop.
During Artisterium, Karvasla doubled as www.artisterium.org 14. Artisterium opening, Karvasla Gallery.

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