Collabs & Events

At the end of April, I had the chance to speak at the Catchlight Summit in San Francisco, USA, about the geopolitical dynamics and human consequences of territorial conflicts in Georgia.

The German journalist Henning Sußebach traveled for 'Zeit Magazin' from Norway along the Russian border to Georgia. Here, we set off together to Khurvaleti. Separated by the barbed wire dividing the village, we met 85-year-old Valia Valishvili, who lives on Russian-occupied territory. I had visited Valia several times before, photographed her, talked with her. Today, something very special happened. While the Georgian border police officer who accompanied us was holding me, I tried to reach for Valia's hand. Valia leaned forward, it was a struggle, the wire injured us, but we succeeded in touching each other. Time stood still for a moment. Later, Valia explained why she didn't want to come to the other side. Henning Sußebach quotes her in his feature like this: "I'm so afraid of dying alone. But I can't go, I don't want to go. If I die on the other side, I won't be buried next to my husband Data." Back then, in Khurvaleti, Henning had tears in his eyes.

The origin of the exhibition was an action initiated together with the artist Mishiko Sulakauri in the Georgian-Russian conflict zone. We planned to steal one of the green signs, erected by Russia-backed militants, declaring border crossing as illegal. Ironically, the border itself was established illegally. Upon reaching our destination – a cemetery avoided by villagers for fear of arrest and abduction – we found the sign solidly cemented into the ground. Its removal, requiring an electric cutter, would have alerted the nearby stationed Russian soldiers.

Choosing an alternative, we cut down bushes in Bershueti, marked with white cloth strips to signify the 'border'. On the way back to Tbilisi, our car was filled with branches. Mishiko transformed these into an installation for the exhibition, alongside images of my 'Shifting Borders' project. 'Bushes sway, some things get lost' prompts reflection on personal relationships with borders, demarcations, and the impacts of the ongoing border conflict.

My photo reportage for 'The Wider Image' was made possible by a scholarship from Reuters. After my mentor Yannis Bekhratis died shortly after the project started, I didn't finish the work for four years. I felt unsure, didn't know how. But I kept reminding myself of Yannis' words, 'Life happens'. Towards the end of 2022, my visual storytelling was finally published.