Natela Grigalashvili's photos of people of Georgia in Marseille display

Moments captured from lives of people in various parts of Georgia by award-winning Georgian photographer Natela Grigalashvili are on show at Maupetit, côté Galerie in France's coastal city of Marseille.

The display titled Peoples of Georgia brings to viewers photographs on subjects ranging from the spiritual Doukhobor community in Gorelovka, south of Georgia to the latest award-winning series The Final Days of Georgian Nomads about villagers abandoning their homes in the mountainous parts of Adjara province in the west.

The exhibition features works from four different series, captured at different stages by the author who received a Direct Look Award for the latter project earlier this month.

The gallery is hosting photographs from different series covering communities across Georgia and personal photographs of Grigalashvili. Photo: Natela Grigalashvili.

It follows the fate of residents in highland villages of the province who, left in the face of lack of infrastructure and material hardship, have gradually abandoned their homes in search of seasonal work in Georgia or neighbouring Turkey.

Along with the draining of residents, their "traditions and unique lifestyle", in many ways determined by the local circumstances, is also disappearing from the picturesque mountain locations.

Along with the two projects Grigalashvili is also introduced to viewers in France through a black-and-white series of her own childhood and experienced that shaped her interest in photography. Titled Book of My Mother, it was featured as a honorary participant of the 1st Armenian International Photo Fest in July.

A view of the award-winning photographer's works exhibited at the Marseille gallery. Photo: Natela Grigalashvili.

Grigalashvili is now recognised for her signature theme of isolated communities and residents in remote locations of Georgia, with her works bringing both wide-focus views of the people on the backdrop of their natural surroundings and close-up shots bringing their daily work and life to viewers.

She has also exhibited photographs illustrating life on the border between Iraq and Iran, and has featured in displays at the Newman Popiashvili Gallery in New York, United States and the Vienna Photo Gallery in Austria.

In Georgia Grigalashvili teaches photojournalism and is the founder of Tbilisi-based documentary photo agency Kontakt Photos.

The exhibition at the Marseille-based gallery will be open for viewers through October 5.