The artists Ninutsa Shatberashvili and Sandro Sulaberidze from Tbilisi, Georgia are the first guests of the newly opened message salon embassy Zürich Nord.
Ninutsa Shatberashvili and Sandro Sulaberidze studied photography in Tbilisi, but their artistic practice goes beyond that. Both photographers are part of the Tbilisi artist collective Obscura, a group of young artists and curators.
In Tbilisi, a city which is slowly establishing itself as an artistic hub Obscura organizes and curates, exhibitions in the local art scene, generates temporary art spaces and inspires, motivates and stimulates an increasingly visible artist generation and art scene in the Georgian capital.
Sandro Sulaberidze (born 1991) and Ninutsa Shatberashvili (born 1993) belong to the first generation that was born into an independent Georgia after the fall of communism. They see art and its public visibility as a vehicle and a means of development in civil society.
Post-Communist Georgian society is still very influenced and heavily damaged by the Soviet Union in many regards. On the other hand, it is very rooted in the Christian-Orthodox tradition and Caucasian culture and constant conflict with Russia has a negative effect on the economic and political development. Georgia’s young generation is looking for a new identity. They are trying to metabolize the history and influence of the Soviet Union and revive their lost cultural traditions in the hopes of developing into a modern and open society, which with its gaze facing Europe, wants to maintain its pride, independence and uniqueness.
During the next eleven weeks Ninutsa Shatberashvili and Sandro Sulaberidze will work in the studio, explore the neighborhood and the city and visit exhibitions and artistic happenings. They will also invite new friends, neighbors, the Zürich art scene and anyone else who is interested to the studio in Zürich Schwamendingen for casual get-togethers and, at the end of the residency, to a zine-vernissage.
It is not the goal of the residency to present a final exhibition, rather the artists are free to design their residency as they wish and to let themselves go without the pressure to produce. They can give themselves completely to inspiration, artistic experimentation, as well as the networks and the neighborly life in the Schwamendingen housing cooperative.
message salon embassy Zürich Nord
Hunzikerareal, Dialogweg 6, 8050 Zürich
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