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A Project by Irina Kurtishvili & Andreas M. Kaufmann

The two-part proposal for the passage underground inside the Baratashvili Bridge is based on historical photographs that originate from a private archive in Tbilisi. This photographic material has been rhythmically mounted on the graffiti-covered walls of the pedestrian crossing of said bridge, and thematizes its near one-hundred-year history in fulfilling an urban function. Connotative memories are invoked, and earlier misapperceptions might become evident and either rectified or validated. In any case, it is an invitation to join a trip into the controversial history of this visionary bridgework and its changeful utilization. The visionary architecture of this structure has even planed one exhibition space for art, which actually lasted in this function only for a little while.

The second part of the project consists of a single slide installation mounted in the passage underground, which opens up to the current governmental palace and the Freedom-Place. The slide depicts the former steel bridge called Mukhrani. Metaphorically, former Mukhrani Bridge inside the new bridge construction establishes symbolic ties with the Past, Present and an intended future. Though the Past and the Future seem untouchable, the respective present and its attendant interests have misappropriated them throughout history almost without exception: constructions, reconstructions and deconstructions notwithstanding. In the projection space this mechanism is becoming an experience, as the slide installation is coercing the viewer to move between glare and recognition, image-construction and image-deconstruction, the latter with attributes of “fragmentation”, “distortion” and “overlapping”. And maybe one finds that the image is changing constantly depending on his position in the space and the direction of the gaze. Eventually this might lead to the cognition that everything we are going to see, is basically dependent on our motivations and interests.

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Location:
Baratashvili Bridge, Tiflis, Georgia

Photos:
Andreas M. Kaufmann

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Artists:
Irina Kurtishvili
Andreas M. Kaufmann

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