22 - 25 luglio 2010, Tbilisi (Georgia)
The Cau­ca­sus speaks with frozen moments. With the fall of the Com­mu­nist regime, trains stopped mid-​route, the cable car over one of the canyons of Tbilisi was aban­doned halfway, and the hous­ing estates of the never real­ized future in Mush found tem­po­rary set­tlers. The her­itage of Soviet archi­tec­ture in the region has revealed its antic­i­pa­tory poten­tial of mul­ti­ple sec­ondary uses, cre­ative economies, and the sus­tain­able and self-​organizing poli­cies par­al­lelly present in the cul­tural dis­course nowa­days. The Former Min­istry of High­ways of the Soviet Repub­lic of Georgia, erected in 1975 by archi­tects George Chakhava (1923–2007) and Zurab Jalagha­nia is one of the most stun­ning build­ings in the world. An exam­ple of a realized utopia (a utopie réalisable), it has been productive of an augmented real­ity, blend­ing the image of the future under Com­mu­nism with organic, palimpsestic architecture and the con­cepts of a continuous, non-master-planned environment. This three-​day res­i­dency of Cau­casian and inter­na­tional artists, archi­tects, cura­tors, aca­d­e­mics, and of the Tbilisi public will offer rich and fas­ci­nat­ing ses­sions of research and leisure around the mul­ti­ple vari­a­tions of this het­ero­topic place. The pro­gram includes talks, work­shops, art and archi­tec­ture, con­certs, field trips, and roof par­ties. The point of departure refers to the poet­ics of frozen images, with its inher­ent poten­tial of past and future meanings — whether the legacy of mod­ernism, a moving and walk­ing city, plug-​in con­cepts, ‘back-to-the-future’ poli­cies, and much more. For three days in July this fan­tas­tic build­ing will become a diagram for var­i­ous hor­i­zon­tal con­tri­bu­tions, where one spon­ta­neous act may rad­i­cally change the project. This will also be the only public open­ing of the build­ing before its ren­o­va­tion as the future head­quar­ters of the Bank of Geor­gia. Info: www.laura-palmer.pl