Tbilisi Architecture Biennial to run online with focus on commonness
Points of common interest in modern societies, with focus on the urban aspect, will be the theme explored by participants in the biennial, which is set to run later this year. Photo via Tbilisi Architecture Biennial.
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Tbilisi Architecture Biennial, a platform that launched three years ago to bring together professionals of the field, will run online in its 2020 edition in light of the circumstances brought about by the coronavirus outbreak.
With the changed focus and new dates, the biennial will aim to "ensure a wider outreach" by going beyond the Georgian capital. Organisers will host the remote event on the theme of points of commonness in contemporary fragmented societies.
The theme is explored not only from general approach to the idea of the commons as a shared, universal resources but also via a lens looking at political and economic transformation that took place in Georgia following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
????UPDATE???? After long discussions with our partners, we have decided NOT to cancel Biennial 2020 and move to digital format. The dates will also change due to new realities. We will confirm the dates later on but we orient on October-November 2020. More - https://t.co/hsZ3gYT3rw
— Tbilisi Architecture Biennial (@TbilisiB) May 6, 2020
Georgia's rapid shift to a neoliberal political system in the 1990s resulted in a new understanding of these commons - resources that opened up for commodification and individualization," a preview for the 2020 biennial said.
What Do We Have in Common will be the theme derived from this point of view, involving participants of the second edition to delve into the definition of togetherness in the scope of urban context.
The architects, urbanists and state institutions play a fundamental role in maintaining the spatial commons, and no more so than in Tbilisi" - Tbilisi Architecture Biennial preview
Announcing the shift in focus for the TAB, organisers also said they had derived the theme before the outbreak of the newest global pandemic, however the COVID-19 reality tied into the questions they were asking about points of common interest in societies.
Armed with the questions and the insights, participants will congregate through digital means between October 1-November 30 for the biennial, launched in 2017 by architects Tinatin Gurgenidze, Otar Nemsadze and Gigi Shukakidze and art editor Natia Kalandarishvili.
The inaugural 2018 edition of the event involved exhibitions, screenings, talks and urban tours in and around the Georgian capital involving local and foreign architects, artists and collectives.
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