Exchange Academy

02-23 April 2008, Tbilisi, Georgia




Concept and organization GeoAIR, Georgia:
Freya van Dien (NL); Onno Dirker (NL): Sophia Tabatadze (NL/GEO)

Participating Artists:
Vahram Aghasyan (ARM); Can Altay (TR); Onno Dirker (NL); Ergün Erkoçu (NL); Peter Zuiderwijk (NL); Kote Jincharadze (GEO); Kote Sulaberidze & Nino Chilashvili (GEO); Sophia Tabatadze (Geo/NL); Lado Darakhvelidze (GEO).

Participatants from 'Archidrome' - Contemporary Art Archive, Georgia
Nini Palavandishvili; Ani Chorgolashvili; Lali Pertenava; Sophia Kilasonia; Sophia Tabatadze.

Participant from State Silk Museum, Georgia
Nino (Chuka) Kuprava

During three weeks in April 2008 a group of Georgian, Dutch, Turkish and Armenian artists created platform for exchange of information, brainstorm sessions, group and individual projects and research on and around the theme: contemporary art archive. This project was realized in collaboration with the team of Georgian Contemporary Art Archive ‘Archodrome’ and took place in the Silk Museum in Tbilisi. At the end of the working period of three weeks, final exhibition titled ‘Re-Opening of Silk Museum’ was opened for to public.

To avoid the known setting of the artists being invited somewhere distant place for short while, in order to produce quick work that concludes into an exhibition, of which not much remains after the departure of the artists, we decided to go the other way and change the setting. Suggestion was that the invited artists would work on a real problem that is present in Georgia, namely lack of archive or a base where the information and experience about contemporary art can be brought together. This information can have various forms, including collection and registration the projects like ‘Exchange Academy’. Thus the question was to think of ‘archiving’ the project like we were part of as a process of the project itself.

During the project public and art sector of Tbilisi were involved in the project through public lectures and talks by: Maia Mania (Geo); Khatuna Khabuliani (Geo): Nana Kipiani (Geo); and Nathaniel Mc’bride (GB).

Vahram Aghasyan (ARM) and Can Altay (TR) organized artists’ talk in collaboration with ‘Archidrime’ ‘Archidrome’ - Contemporary Art Archive, Georgia


Project was support by:
Stroom, the Hague (NL); NCDO (NL); Step Beyond, European Cultural Foundation (NL).

Read More>>