For the first time, the Tbilisi Architecture Biennial will be making all of its events and projects accessible online.
Here is a run-through of some of the talks, tours, and workshops taking place during the opening week. Scroll down below to view the full program.
SUNDAY 18.10.2020
TOUR: Samgori market (11.00 CEST)
Investigates the structure of markets in Tbilisi and will talk about the changes they underwent during the transition from Soviet to independent Georgia.
The tour will be livestreamed on https://www.instagram.com/untitled.tbilisi/
See https://www.facebook.com/events/1002486370179143/
ONLINE GAME : dostroyka / completion
The game explores the impact of individual design decisions on the spatial quality of shared space. Players observe their neighbours’ design decisions in real-time – will you choose to take them into consideration when creating your own part?
https://www.facebook.com/events/2769960259959983
TALK: Opening night – Milano (18.00 CEST)
Talk with Lorenza Baroncelli, (ab)Normal, Fattorini G., TAB committee
https://www.facebook.com/events/360968498670556
Streamed through www.twitch.tv/abnormal_story
MONDAY 19.10.2020
OPENING: Birzhastation (15.00 CEST)
This temporary installation is located on the former Academe-city territory and merges with the contextual importance of the place. The project is intended to encourage the rest of the world to learn about Tbilisi’s political-aesthetic experience.
https://www.facebook.com/events/344949000285423/
TALK: Opening night – Tbilisi (17.00 CEST)
Talk with (ab)Normal, TAB committee and selected guests
https://www.facebook.com/events/360968498670556
Streamed through www.twitch.tv/abnormal_story
TUESDAY 20.10.2020
TALK : Alternative projections#1 (17.00 CEST)
Zura Jishkariani – “Dream Web” | mapping and archiving the dreams of Tbilisi |
https://www.facebook.com/events/360968498670556
Streamed through www.twitch.tv/abnormal_story
WEDNESDAY 21.10.2020
TALK: Alternative Projections #2 (14.00 CEST)
Koka Vashakidze -“Argonauts’ Diary” | Storyline of a betting shop |
https://www.facebook.com/events/360968498670556
Streamed through www.twitch.tv/abnormal_story
TALK: Peter Eisenman: Lateness (19.00 CEST)
American architect and architectural theorist Peter Eisenman from New York will give a lecture on “Lateness”.
THURSDAY 22.10.2020
TOUR: OUT-HABIT / TAB 2020 / CHYBIK + KRISTOF + PRAGULIC (13.00 CEST)
The event will be an online guided tour of Prague, provided by PRAGULIC and CHYBIK + KRISTOF architects. Together with a virtually connected audience, they will visit areas of the city that are normally disregarded, revealing layers of their undocumented recent history.
https://www.facebook.com/events/1718473311663992/
TALK: TRAP ARCHITECTURE (18.00 CEST)
Forgotten Architecture, (ab)Normal
https://www.facebook.com/events/360968498670556
Streamed through www.twitch.tv/abnormal_story
FRIDAY 23.10.2020
TALK: Digital territories #1 (18.00 CEST)
Ana Gzirishvili- “Life of my ghost” | CGI character Bay and immaterial realms
https://www.facebook.com/events/360968498670556
Streamed through www.twitch.tv/abnormal_story
SATURDAY 24.10.2020
OPENING: Berlin Pavilion presented by Tinatin Gurgenidze & c/o now
TELEINTERNETCAFE (15:00 CEST)
“FROM SOCIALIST HERITAGE TOWARDS A NEW CONCEPT OF COMMONS”
TRANSSTRUKTURA (16:00 CEST)
“TRANSSTRUKTURA_INTERVENTIONS AND TRANSFORMINGS ON PUBLIC SPACE”
KUMBIMA (17.00 CEST)
“COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS”
BAZAAR WALK-TALK-WATCH (18.00 CEST)
“WORKS ON TBILISI MARKETS”
SCREENING: “PIRIMZE – THE STORY OF A REPAIR PARADISE FROM SOVIET GEORGIA”
MIMI ZEIGER (19.00 CEST)
“KEYNOTE SPEAKER”
https://www.facebook.com/events/352251616112508/
TALK : Digital Territories #2 (14.00 CEST)
Mariam Natroshvili and Detu Jincharadze | Transitions : from the public into the virtual
https://www.facebook.com/events/360968498670556
Streamed through www.twitch.tv/abnormal_story
TOUR: MILAN VS. TBILISI LIVE BRUTALIST ARCHITECTURE TOUR (time TBC)
https://www.facebook.com/events/360968498670556
Streamed through www.twitch.tv/abnormal_story
OPENING: “Hotel, boarding house, sanatorium and their refugee rooms”
SUNDAY 25.10.2020
TOUR Marjanishvili district (13.00-1500 CET)
A tour of the ‘left bank’ of Tbilisi, which was a German settlement in the 19th century.
The project traces the historical, ironic and poetic aspects of the area, and investigates how the district is developing through referencing materials from the 80s and 90s.
https://www.facebook.com/events/1501575246898604/
OPENING Common Waves Radio (14.00 CET)
An independent radio project that voices diverse perspectives and promotes experimental approaches. Expect interviews, documentaries, sound art and DIY radio formats.
https://www.facebook.com/events/2748026532076763/
OPENING Social Manifesto (18.00 CET)
The installation consists of white surfaces, arranged in a circle, which symbolise the walls of the city, and reflect the expressions of passers-by. The circle represents equality and eternity, while the canvas stretched over it, stands for peace, hope and freedom. The installation in its entirety represents the shared environment, while the inner space reflects individual perception.
https://www.facebook.com/events/2027161927413941/
DJ SET ab(normal) visual playlist (18.00 – 20.00 CET)
twitch.tv/abnormal_story
MONDAY 26.10.2020
TAKE OVER Mariam Natroshvili and Detu Jincharadze (10.00-13.00 CET)
TAKE OVER Alessio Grancini “Videos and games collection” (14.00-17.30 CET)
DJ SET Tbili Orgia (18.00 CET)
twitch.tv/abnormal_story
WORKSHOP BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME: Bridging the Researcher Practitioner Divide (18.30 CET)
The impetus for this event emerged from the realization that, despite having so much in common, professional architects and urban scholars rarely collaborate or learn directly from one another. Instead, it is as if designers build the city and then academics come to study what has been done. Recognizing this disconnect, as well as the great potential that exists for better cross-exchange, the workshop will establish new design-research alliances.
TUESDAY 27.10.2020
TAKE OVER Reilly “Corona Voicemail” (10.00-13.00 CET)
TALK Visualize the unknown #1 (14:00 CET)
Vasili Macharadze – Art Games-:Form and Medium
twitch.tv/abnormal_story
LECTURE David Bostanashvili: Close Reading, Self-Referential Architecture (14.00 CET)
David Bostanashvili will reflect Self-Referential Architecture through close reading.The online lecture will be followed by an open discussion, moderated by Metaform Team.
WEDNESDAY 28.10.2020
OPENING Kyiv Pavilion (14.00 CET)
https://www.facebook.com/events/660868094843609/
TALK SPORT EVOLUTION Naomi Accardi, Bianca
Felicori. Football/Fantasy, football obsession when fans can only be online. (18.00 CET)
twitch.tv/abnormal_story
THURSDAY 29.10.2020
DJ SET (ab)Normal Visual Playlist (10.00 CET)
TALK ARCHITECTURE AND VIDEOGAMES (18.00 CET)
Alessio Grancini, Parasite 2.0, (ab)Normal, Ryan Scav (18:00)
twitch.tv/abnormal_story
FRIDAY 30.10.2020
TAKE OVER Iconografie XXI (replica) (10.00 CET)
twitch.tv/abnormal_story
EVENT Urban Vertical Garden Opening (12.00 CET)
The right to nature: a prototype for vertical gardening. The pandemic state has revealed the weak points of an architectural quality that is lacking in many houses around the world. One of the forms in which this characteristic is manifested is in the fact that constructions have been turning its back to nature. Nature is commonly thought of as a luxury attribute or a common ground that nobody enjoys or takes care of.
https://www.facebook.com/events/2113813455419390/
TAKE OVER Malt Disney (14.00 CET)
TALK BEHIND THE SCENES Forgotten Architecture, (ab)Normal (18:00 CET)
twitch.tv/abnormal_story
OPENING Queering Common Space (18.30 CET)
A living archive collecting queer memories, encounters and stories from common and public spaces in the cities of Tbilisi and Berlin. The launch of the living archive will be accompanied with performances and interventions by artists and protagonists of the project: Luke Fierce, BARDO, and Tze Shi will be queering the space of the Berlin Pavilion of Tbilisi Architecture Biennial at Haus der Statistik.
SATURDAY 31.10.2020
TALK In Conversation with Tor Lindstrand (13.00 CET)
Tor Lindstrand, an Associate Professor at the Royal Institute of Technology and a co-owner of the office of Larsson Lindstrand Palme arkitektkontor AB in conversation with Tinatin Gurgenidze, co-founder of Tbilisi Architecture Biennial.
https://www.facebook.com/events/375351710494002
TAKE OVER Covid Room Remote Fashion Show + Visual and DJ Set (18.00 CET)
twitch.tv/abnormal_story
SUNDAY 01.11.2020
INSTALLATION There’s Someone in My Playground, But It’s Not Me (10.00 CET)
After analysing public spaces it was found out that most of them are subject to private ownership. Members of society are deprived of the possibility to exercise any influence or have any access to them. This inspired an installation depicting a nonfunctional, inaccessible playground – the first public space where a child establishes communication with the others and starts to draw a line between the public and private areas.
The installation which is located on the rooftop of the Rustaveli metro station, which is also private property is a paradox like many of the public places of Tbilisi as it is impossible to get close to the playground and enjoy it.
https://www.facebook.com/events/2858303881066553
TALK Earthmovers: Surpassing the Blade (12.00 CET)
Earthmovers(2020) is a project by Klodiana Millona, Yuan Chun Liu and Endi Tupja, that reflects a layered process linking the bulldozer to practices of clearance and spaces of commons, addressing a culture of clearance that has penetrated into the public narrative of post socialists countries in Eastern Europe, as a means to catch up with the West and the idea of progress as a Western construct.
Taking the recent infamous event of the brutal demolition of the National Theatre of Tirana, and using the bulldozer as a primary object of inquiry, it further reflects how under the grand narrative of (western constructed notion of) modernity, colonial definitions and practices are still implemented and domesticized in the exploitation of commons.
MONDAY 02.11.2020
OPENING A Dialogue with a Bench (15.00 CET)
Investigating the Soviet-era concrete benches and their role in contemporary Tbilisi
In the project a group of architects and researchers reflect on different ways to approach decaying concrete benches and their forgotten use in public space.
The Soviet-era concrete benches are still an integral part of many local parks and neighbourhood locations in Tbilisi, but their function has changed during decades. These benches stand nowadays more as visual forgotten monuments than functional objects. They are considered more as ruins or remains of the past.
https://www.facebook.com/events/1039089146537189/
DISCUSSION Common Waves Collective: Radio as a Public Space/ Radio as Community (16.30)
Radio is an invisible public space that has proven its political power countless times. For many independent radio projects this has as much importance as providing a space for communities through the radio. In the framework of the @tbilisiarchiteturebiennial We have invited different non-commercial radio projects from around the world to discuss their experience of radio as a public and a community space.
Roundtable participants are: Community Radio Tbilisi, Dublin Digital Radio, HammamRadio, Swati Pan (community media activist India), Vinod Pavarala (UNESCO Chair on Community Media). Moderator: Ralf Wendt (radio producer/activist since 1986).
https://www.facebook.com/events/1000999297047395/
TUESDAY 03.11.2020
OPENING Common Waves Radio Program Opening (14.00 CET)
The Common Waves Collective will produce and curate interviews, documentaries, sound art and DIY radio formats during Tbilisi Architecture Biennial 2020 and beyond.
https://www.facebook.com/events/2748026568743426/
OPENING Community Radio Tbilisi: Tbilisi Sound Exhibition 2020 / Listening to the City – Virtual Launch (16.00 CET)
Five sound and visual artists based in Tbilisi choose a place or a situation, in the city and create a sound composition as a reaction and reflection on this specific spot. There are no limits in terms of length, the technique of collecting and composing the sound.
https://www.facebook.com/events/3538447472882944/
WEDNESDAY 04.11.2020
WALKSHOP Laura Apolonio: The Virtual “Guide Dog”: Dialogical Drifts (18.00 CET)
The purpose of the walkshop is to create dialogical drifts between two geolocated people in different and preferably very distant locations. The participants are organized in pairs and each guides the other in the drift, as if it was a virtual guide dog, through communication by mobile messages.
THURSDAY 05.11.2020
TALK In Conversation with Jacob van Rijs (MVRDV) (15.00 CET)
https://www.facebook.com/events/672133156775111
TALK Dublin Digital Radio: Housing & Ideology (16.00 CET)
The Housing & Ideology Symposium at City Hall in Dublin, Ireland aimed to establish a forum for a myriad of voices to explore the experiences of living in an obedient city and point the way towards possible solutions.
OPENING Pub Sandberg: How do You Live? X Pillow Streaming (16.00 CET)
Pillow Streaming was a series of weekly marathon like streamings hosted from rooms of quarantined students from the Sandberg Instituut during the lockdown 2020 via alonetogether.pub. A distant community was formed and nurtured being able to listen to each other, a different school arised when its walls disappeared.
https://www.facebook.com/events/362459014866978
OPENING Bazaar Talk (17.00 CET)
This webinar brings together artists and scholars who previously worked on/in/through Tbilisi bazaars and markets. As semi-private and commercial spaces that provide public resources and social & cultural knowledge, they contain significant services and social infrastructures. Regarding past experiences on those practices and places, the webinar discussions are based on such questions to open up a dialogue.
FRIDAY 06.11.2020 (11.30 CET)
TALK Claiming*Spaces Conference: Panel – Queering Norms
This is a rebroadcast of the panel “Queering Norms” at Claiming*Spaces Conference 2019 in Vienna. Who defines what ‘good’ architecture is? How can we reveal architecture’s self-defined objectivity and neutrality? Why not think of an (built) environment where there is room for all of us?
https://www.facebook.com/events/781118692742752
OPENING Participation in the Age of Platforms (13.30 CET)
The rise of digital platforms augmented the concept of participation, from mere presence (geographical) to proximity of interest (ideological). From citizen involvement, to community engagement: but when participation breaks free from the physical presence of citizens, how to decide who’s invited at the negotiating table?
In the second part of the mini-series we will explore the complex, often complicated relationship between architecture, platform technologies and economics with Jose Sanchez, author of “Architecture for the Commons: Participatory Systems in the Age of Platforms”, in conversation with Denisse Vega de Santiago, researcher at VOLUME Magazine.
https://www.facebook.com/events/368776457699195
