Migrant stories, experiences at centre of Contemporary Art Space Batumi display

Artwork inspired by experience of refugees and migrants across the world will come to the foreground with a display of a group of artists at Contemporary Art Space Batumi, a gallery venue in the Black Sea coastline city, starting next week.

In an "attempt to tell different stories from different perspectives", organisers and curators will bring works by eight creatives who made trials of forcefully displaced people their own or have themselves faced the troubles of relocation due to external forces.

Under the title Shipwreck, the exhibition seeks to highlight exhibits that became fruits of effort by the involved group to work away from the headline-focused media narratives of displaced individuals throughout the recent years. The resulting art has been aimed at re-personalising the stories and presenting dignified angles on this challenging worldwide development of recent times.

Works for the maiden exhibition in 2018 were curated by Alfons Hug and Asli Samadova, with the inaugurating event hosted in Baku. Photo: Anka Gujabidze for Goethe Institute.

Initially conceived a decade ago when the works were curated by Alfons Hug and Asli Samadova in Baku, from video exhibits by Adad Hannah and Marcel Odenbach to self-portraits by photographer Omar Victor Diop, centred around a reconstruction of black freedom movements.

Georgia has much to tell about migration. It is a home to many internally displaced Georgians, as well as a shelter for refugees and migrants from neighbouring countries. It is also a country that has lost almost a quarter of its population to immigration" - preview for the display

While keeping this international context, organisers are also incorporating local currents of forced displacement with the Georgian display, from IDPs of local conflicts to migrants absorbed from across the region.

Manuchar Okrostsvaridze, 'Two Conditions', 2011. Watercolour on paper. Photo via Contemporary Art Space Batumi.

The exhibiting group also involves photographer Sitara Ibrahimova, who has produced series of works on people displaced through conflicts, as well as Georgian multimedia artist Tamar Berianidze, visual creative Tamar Nadiradze and painter Manuchar Okrostsvaridze.

Previously hosted in capital Tbilisi by Propaganda art organisation and Goethe Institute Georgia last year, the display involved an extended roster of artists and followed the original exhibition, titled Gericault‘s shipwreck revisited, in Baku in 2018.

The Batumi display will run between February 8-22 at the gallery located at 1/5, Zviad Gamsakhurdia Street in the city.