Connecting Georgia
Connecting Georgia (2019-2020) is an artistic project that aims at developing and discussing tools that can be helpful to tackle the challenges for sites with post-industrial cultural heritage. The project connects the city of Batumi with other european cities engaged in the Memory of Water Creative Europe EU project.
Batumi in Georgia is a fast-developing city on the Black Sea coast. During the last decades the city's cultural heritage, especially in the Old Town, is suffering from the results of rapid development, and the history and the cultural memories are slowly disappearing. It is a vital challenge for Batumi to embrace the urban development and find tools for safeguarding the history of the city.
By engaging artists in Stockholm and Batumi in co-creation and exploration, Connecting Georgia intends to include Batumi in a bigger international dialogue on the challenges of urban planning and city development in waterfront cities with post-industrial cultural heritage. It was planned to also include creative residency of two Swedish artists, curated by artistic duo SIMKA, in Batumi (Georgia) but due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the plan was altered to include more digital exchange of ideas and exposure. The project aims to explore the impact that artists can have on post-industrial waterfront heritage planning.
5 artists from Stockholm and 5 artists from Batumi are collaborating virtually and exchanging ideas and experiences. Each artist develops an artistic intervention that explores the post-industrial cultural heritage, social sustainability and urban development. The project closes with a digital city lab in each city– a place where citizens, artists, experts, NGO’s and the public sector can come together to co-create ideas, tools and technologies that addresses local challenges in a European context.
Read more about the project on Intercult's website.
Connecting Georgia
With support from the Swedish Institute