Book on Tbilisi urban transformation set for first unveling in capital
The talk is the first presentation of the book 'Tbilisi - Archive of Transition', created with the effort of a group of Georgian and foreign authors and released after a successful crowdfunding drive. Image via organisers.
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A talk about the rapid and continuous urban transformation that has made major changes to the fabric and function of Tbilisi over the past 10 years will mark the first unveiling of the book Tbilisi - Archive of Transition, the result of a crowdfunding effort from three years ago, in the capital on Saturday.
At the Posta da Kona bookstore in the Old Town section of the city, architect Jesse Vogler, artist and curator Wato Tsereteli and artist Alexsi Soselia will come together to raise questions of ownership, preservation and memory in the context of the urban and social realm.
The hosts will pose subjects about "ambitious building projects" that have affected every part of Tbilisi and created a "sense of constant transformation", while asking how selection of areas and tangible urban elements are chosen for preservation or destruction, remembrance or erasure.
The bilingual discussion will follow the release of the book, authored by a group of Georgian and foreign authors after a successful crowdfunding drive in early 2018. The print publication deals with reduction of public spaces, city development influenced by market interests, and public protests against the phenomenon.
It resulted from collection of material and its study by architects, urbanists, artists and researchers from Georgia, the United States and Germany for more than three years, and has been called a "snapshot of a city in transition” by the publishers. The book was later also presented at the 2018 Frankfurt Book Fair, where Georgia enjoyed the Guest of Honour status.
Attending to this transformation demands new discussion among the city’s inhabitants and raises important questions: What is to be preserved and what is to be destroyed? What can be owned and what belongs to everyone? What do we want to remember and what can be forgotten?
- preview from organisers
Chapters of the book include contributions by city planner Zurab Bakradze, landscape architect Sara Cowles and activist Elene Margvelashvili. Other parts of the publication come from journalists Ben Knight and Sebastian Pranz, with images by artists Mamuka Japharidze, Fabian Weiss and Alexi Soselia serving to illustrate the work.
The project for the book has been supported by the Goethe Institute Georgia, the German Foreign Office, DVV International, the Heinrich Boell Foundation South Caucasus, the Georgian National Book Centre, the HFBK School of Design Hamburg and the Washington University St. Louis.
The talk in Tbilisi will be hosted at Posta da Kona, a store bringing together Posta Press and Kona Books publishers. The bookstore is located at 10 Mazniashvili Street.