5th Tbilisi Triennial - 'Peace Pandemic'

History

1st Tbilisi Triennial: Offside Effect – Academy as Exhibition

In the world of visual art, many events have been featuring a strong focus on the academy’s status in both the cultural and theoretical arena. Strikingly, these events all seemed to continuously draw attention to rigorous processes such as the introduction of the or meticulous attempts to describe artistic research and artistic knowledge production. Those often strict forms of quantifying and defining in turn necessitate a new investigation of what the academy is about. This time in multiple and fluid modes, where art academies can emerge as temporary, autonomous sanctuaries for artistic thinking; in fact the utmost and decisive factor in art education. In order to achieve this goal, CCA Tbilisi initiated an idiosyncratic dissemination platform: a Triennial not only encompassing visual art, but also including a focus on art education and its related forms of research. The first edition of this Triennial, entitled, took place in 2012.

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2nd Tbilisi Triennial: SOS - Self-Organized Systems

Self-organized systems often result from processes of transformative, seemingly chaotic environments, which are shifting from the pole of subordination of hierarchical structures towards new forms of knowledge production, self-initiative, and self-referentiality. Georgia, currently being in the continuous process of seeking new forms of identity and communication within a former highly restrictive environment, is a paragon of an ideal starting position for the emergence of self-reliable, independent structures.

These resulting structures can be defined as so-called autopoi- etic systems, which indicate their ability to maintain and reproduce themselves with neither a need to rely on outside influences, nor to be steered by external power structures. Similar to the term poetry, which is one widespread instrument of expression and rendition of a country’s collective memory - and therefore closely associated with nostalgia - the term Autopoiesis is etymologically attributed to the same stem: poiesis (greek- to create). It holds the potential to explore the circularity, interaction, binarities and complexities of the ever-evolving surroundings with a new form of (visual) poetry.

In this context, the CCA – Center of Contemporary Art – Tbilisi can be considered one distinct example of a self-organized institution In Georgia. By combining exhibition space with an informal education system, the Center has accumulated a broadexperience of community-based, non-hierarchical project work in the arts as well as in various other fields. The 1st Tbilisi Triennial organized by the CCA covered the topic of alternative approaches towards education, whereas the 2nd edition intends to give independent platforms, collectives, and venues from around the globe a concrete forum by inviting them to represent those exact community-based approaches. Furthermore, each and every project will be fully autonomous and responsible for their art production and curation according to their vision.

SOS - indicating an emergency.
SOS - in this case, also holds a solution.

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3rd Tbilisi Triennial: The Will

The 3rd Tbilisi International Triennial organized by the Center of Contemporary Art - Tbilisi (CCA-T) took place on October 1th - November 1st 2018.

Visual art as a mode of communication and information exchange has the ability to address and initiate societal change and innovation. The Tbilisi Triennial has an unique potential to strengthen the local cultural context, whereas it simultaneously puts it on the world map - as can be seen by the fact it is the only regional member of the International Biennial Association (IBA).

The Triennial pursues a project-based, decentralized approach where each project will have its own curator, resonating with various and paradox modes. The 3rd edition will revolve around the topic of „Will“. Will is something ephemeral every human, conscient being is endowed with; the fundamental force of movement and evolution, it is a highly individual phenomenon and universal at the same time. The Triennial seeks to explore various modes of representation for reflections and notions of „will“ and how they manifest within a certain personal, societal, cultural, economical, global scale.
 

4th Tbilisi Triennial: Microclimate/Education
01.10.2022- 30.10.2022

Under the tree canopy. On the far side of slope. Beyond the grid of statistical calculations and algorithmic approximations. Here are the microclimates we live in. Here, in a thin inhabited band, we find the richest gradient of conditions for life. Temperature and humidity, ideas and creativity—they are
all at their most varied and complex in the 2-3 meters above and below the ground we call home. The soils and vegetation, feelings and imagination, both respond and create the conditions for the strange proximity of life, and ideas, as we know it. These are the atmospheres of difference—where patterns and
processes become specific. Lived in an embodied sense and responsive to actual conditions.

The fourth edition of the Tbilisi Triennial proposes that we inhabit these atmospheres of difference as we find new ways of orienting our creative expression as well as our material practices. Organized around the title Microclimate/Education, this edition of the triennial brings together two strands of
inquiry that have animated the CCA-Tbilisi for the past decade—place-based practices and educational experimentation. Together, these threads frame a horizon of action that at once grounds us in the immediate conditions of place, while expanding to an as-yet undefined future.

In our development of informal educational platforms, we have found that certain dynamic equilibriums, certain atmospheres of exploration, lie at the heart of true learning processes. Staging and sustaining this dynamic atmosphere is where the real work lies—as it is here where people learn to trust
and dare and to not hesitate as they unfold and realize potentials that were lingering there all along. This is the work of the microclimate. Where the focus is not on the quality of knowledge transfer but on the quality of the environment and process that sustains it—on the conditions of possibility.

Microclimate/Education will look to focus and encourage the construction of this environment by bringing together makers, thinkers, and learners who engage in the specificity of place and who expand conditions of learning. When these two lines meet and part and entangle, creativity as a true pluralistic
process is opened. Here, intuitive and rational are no longer contradictory orientations but instead allow for the accident, the mistake, and the paradox—and the network of response to this dynamic condition. Through this 4th edition of the Tbilisi Triennial, we continue to believe-in and encourage alternative
modes of creative expression that are based on engagement with the world in all its complexity and contradictions.