“Creeping Borders“: photographer Tako Robakidze documents life near Georgia’s occupied Tskhinvali province
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A young Georgian photographer has documented the daily shifting reality of locals living near Georgia’s occupied breakaway province of Tskhinvali (South Ossetia) in a project receiving international attention.
Under the title Creeping Borders, Tako Robakidze worked over the last two years to photograph residents of Georgian villages near the Administrative Boundary Line (ABL) separating the country from the province, the setting of the 2008 Russian-Georgian War.
Robakidze’s work has pictured the fate of families and individuals finding themselves on the frequently shifting border near the ABL, moved by the military operating under the Russian army that occupies the province.
The locals also face the reality of abductions by the occupying forces who cross the barbed wire demarcation line before kidnapping village residents and remove them to the South Ossetian-controlled territory.
Robakidze’s work on producing the documentary photographs caught the attention of organisers of a fellowship program at the prominent Magnum Foundation last year.
She was accepted into the 2017 Photography and Social Justice Fellowship of the foundation alongside eight other photographers from around the world and worked on producing a multimedia format of the Creeping Borders project.
The fellowship was designed by the foundation for “specialized training, mentorship, and space for experimentation with new approaches to socially engaged documentary practice”.
The resulting project by Robakidze, has included interviews and visual material along with photographs depicting the stark reality on the ground.
Her work in the localities has also received international media attention, with a New York Times feature running the story of the residents and photographs by the photographer last month.
The production of the multimedia project is expected to conclude this week, with a prospect for subsequent public displays.
Beside her work on the Creeping Borders, Tako Robakidze has also worked on documenting the life of locals in Georgia’s north-eastern Pankisi Gorge.She was a runner-up of the 2015 Untold Stories photography platform organised by the EyeEm photography community and VII Photo Agency.
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