Yuri Mechitov “Bearing Witness“
Thousands of my negatives are waiting for their hour. Sometimes I think not to shoot more, but dig up archives. I switched to digital photography 10 years ago, so those three years are more visible. I have to scan all valuable negatives in order to create my whole photo story.

Yuri Mechitov, photographer, born in Tbilisi, Georgia May 10, 1950
Graduated from Georgian Polytechnic Institute in 1972, as a mining engineer. Author of several film documentaries & more than 90 photo exhibitions worldwide. Worked for many years as a stills photographer for “Georgia Film Studio”

Dina Oganova (DIKARKA) “Nenka Ukraine“
I have a very personal relationship with Ukraine.
For a long time now it’s been my second home country and I’m calling it Nen’ka, my Mother Ukraine. Lots of beautiful memories of people, of places have been gone with the help of the Russian bombs.
The 24th of February became a day of my nightmare when I woke up in the white mountains with the news about the bombing of my beloved Kyiv. It was shocking and it’s still going on…

Dina Oganova is a freelance Documentary photographer, educator, and bookmaker living in Tbilisi. Worked on a personal, long-term project mostly in her and post soviet countries, focused on women’s and young girls’ rights, and social and political topics.
Double winner of the European Union prize in documentary photography.

Daro Sulakauri “Terror Incognita”

The Pankisi Gorge region is a remote mountainous enclave in the far northeast corner of the Republic of Georgia. Since December 1994, when war broke out between the Russian-backed central government in Grozny and a determined group of Chechen resistance fighters, Pankisi has witnessed an influx of refugees from Chechnya. Though not recognized or officially monitored by international agencies, Pankisi has become a refuge from state-sponsored terror for thousands of people who, ironically, are accused of waging terror at home. Chechens have a reputation for rugged individualism, even among the peoples of the Caucasus who – by any standards – are accustomed to rugged conditions and nurture a fierce sense of national pride and independence in light of the imperialist tendencies of surrounding nations. By most estimates, approximately 5,000 Chechens escaped the deadly war in Chechnya by fleeing to Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge.

Guram Tsibakhashvili “Definitions”
Not only lets facts and events fully reflect their true selves, yet even invite viewers to make a choice between the author’s art and the undeveloped photo paper around it, leaving a blank space for the flow of ideas. For such a complex approach towards the universe Guram Tsibakhashvili presents quite a marginal and scandalous art, which is rarely noticed and this perhaps is one of the elements of the marginality.

Guram Tsibakhashvili is a Tbilisi-based Georgian artist and photographer. His work spans several decades and has been published and exhibited widely. Works of the 1980s and 1990s provided us with the definitive record of a country in transformation. On the one hand, just liberated from the Soviet Union, the newborn country is fighting civil war and chaos, on the other hand, modern art movements are finding new ways out in the works of Georgian youth.

Giorgi Shengelia’s “Accidental Portraits” series was created with experimental printing techniques. The images are miniature size; overexposed, or torn, sometimes with burnt edges – always developed with different chemicals. The series is an attempt to restore his own family photo album destroyed by the fire…

Giorgi Shengelia was born in 1984 in Tbilisi, Georgia. In parallel with his documentary work as a freelance photographer, he develops more plastic and more artisanal photography.

Giorgi Nakashidze “Lelo Burti”
is a Georgian folk sport, which is a full-contact ball game. Played once a year at Orthodox Easter, in the small village of Shukhuti, Guria, Western Georgia. The game has no rules, time-outs, or limit to the number of participants. Two rivers flow through Shukhuti dividing the village into two parts: upper and lower Shukhuti. The ritual match takes its start in the central part of the village between those streams both located 150-200 meters from the center of Shukhuti. The field is the entire village of Shukhuti and the teams are made up of residents from the upper and lower halves of the village. During the game, the teams compete to push the leather ball, weighing 16-19 kg, to their side of the village. The objective of the game is for one of the teams to get the ball to its brook.
Giorgi Nakashidze is a photographer based in Tbilisi / Batumi Georgia.

Dina Oganova “Me Too” It’s hard and difficult to be a woman in Georgia. Probably, it’s the same in other countries, but I can talk only about mine, Sakartvelo, and what I see here is the ability of women to keep collective silence, and this is the biggest crime, for me. We have to start talking and listening to each other, we have to be more brave and we need to learn how to break the silence about sexual harassment and domestic violence around us.

Dina Oganova – is a Georgian freelance Documentary photographer and numerous Documentary awards winners.

Daro Sulakauri “House Divided” (Shifting Borders)
On those living near the occupied borderlines of two breakaway regions of Georgia.

What does it feel like when you are living on the edge… to be perpetually on the edge of losing, say, a part of your house? Or waking up to find that your house is divided with your living room in your own country, but your kitchen now residing within enemy-occupied territory?

After a brief war in 2008, Georgia lost another portion of its territory to Russian occupation, expanding South Ossetia as a de facto ‘breakaway’ region…

Giorgi Shengelia “Unknown City”
Moving to another city is the best way to leave the past, to forget it… One starts a new life, while this new life becomes familiar and one gets used to it again. It was the same with me however nostalgia for my city was chasing me… My city was associated only with positive memories. It’s difficult to live in one place and think of another. Nostalgy was getting worse, it is gnawing the soul and one needs to obey until it swallows you. In 2013 I returned to my city, however, I felt even more alienated, than I’ve ever felt in any other city. It was not the city, I left… Such a change in the city and its’ people makes me ambiguous, I have questions that cannot be answered. It is heartbreaking to be an alien in your own city.

Hitori Ni “Of Raves and Protests in Tbilisi”
Omar Gogichaishvili uses the pseudonym Hitori Ni to document his friends and acquaintances, people he hangs out with. These people incidentally belong to the generation of Georgian youth who represent liberated Georgia, not conforming to traditional societal roles and bounds. His photographs often depict the city’s burgeoning nightlife and portray its hedonist spirit, sexual energy, and rebellious mindset that the air is infiltrated with. 

Shalva Khakhanashvili “Urban Archeology”
To look at the photos of Shalvak one hesitates, one tries to recognize the places, the documents, the correspondences. It uses the photo (which structures), architecture (which frame), painting (which put the perspective in the box) – David Mangin

Shalva Khakhanashvili – visual artist & independent curator for contemporary arts. After his first exhibition in 1988 in Tbilisi, has participated in personal & group shows in Tbilisi, Baku, Berlin, Bonn, Bruxelles, Cannakale, Chisinau, Chelyabinsk, Istanbul, Köln, London, Nantes, Moscow, Rethymnon, Sofia, Samarkand, Tashkent, St. Petersburg, Strasbourg, Thessaloniki, Vilnius, Riga, Tallinn & Paris…

Tbel Abuseridze “Protest”

“The Gavrilov’s Night” is a depiction of what happened on the night of June 20 in 2019 when Georgian protesters were demonstrating in front of the parliament building because of an anti-Georgian politician Sergei Gavrilov sharing a central seat in the parliament while strongly opposing the territorial integrity of the country. The police used brute force and illegal rubber bullets against the protesters on the streets of Tbilisi. The photos from this night show a clear example of the distinction between the Georgian people and the government. It was yet another instance of the Georgian Dream unveiling itself as a political party slowly changing the country’s orbit from the West to Moscow.

Tbel Abuseridze studied law but decided to change his major, finished his bachelor’s degree in liberal arts, and pursued his life as a mixed media artist. Currently, he is mostly freelancing for different agencies as a writer and photographer and works on his personal photo projects.
Tbel is a photographer based in Tbilisi / Batumi, Georgia.