“Life Beyond Tourism” Festival in Tbilisi, Georgia

The “Life Beyond Tourism” fes­ti­val in the Geor­gian cap­i­tal of Tbil­isi last week, orga­nized by Fac­ulty of Media Art at the Tbil­isi State Acad­emy of Art as part of the Degree & Pro­fes­sion­al­ism project, attempted to bring together inter­na­tional art and design school alumni to present their the­sis projects and get a taste of Geor­gian cul­ture. The tim­ing was unfor­tu­nate as many of the Euro­pean par­tic­i­pants could not come give the vol­canic ash shut­ting down huge swaths of air space. Luck­ily for us par­tic­i­pants from Par­sons the New School for Design, our flight went through Istan­bul, so there were no prob­lems get­ting to Tbil­isi. The only other for­eign­ers to make it to the fes­ti­val were Armen­ian par­tic­i­pants from the Yere­van State Uni­ver­sity of Archi­tec­ture and Con­struc­tion who arrived by land.

Tbil­isi, Georgia

I had no idea what to expect in Geor­gia. I was rec­om­mended for the fes­ti­val because my Par­sons the­sis, Lil­liput: A Pho­to­graphic Trav­el­ogue, is per­ti­nent to the fes­ti­val theme. Four Par­sons alumni and Aca­d­e­mic Dean Lydia Matthews were treated to a week of sight­see­ing at var­i­ous his­toric loca­tions around Tbil­isi, a per­for­mance of tra­di­tional dance and song, amaz­ing food and wine, and an oppor­tu­nity to see what Geor­gian art and design stu­dents are up to.

View of the Geor­gian coun­try­side from The Church of the Holy Cross.

Inte­rior of a his­toric church that I failed to note the name of.

Per­sian style hall that is part of the Art Acad­emy, closed until funds can be secured for renovation.

Video still from a tra­di­tional dance performance.

For most of the fes­ti­val par­tic­i­pants, “life beyond tourism” meant cul­tural preser­va­tion. Research papers from Geor­gian aca­d­e­mics wavered between enthu­si­asm for the unre­al­ized tourism poten­tial of Georgia’s cul­tural her­itage and con­cern for the preser­va­tion of this her­itage should tourism take off. Geor­gia does not have a robust tourism indus­try, but most of the aca­d­e­mics and artist who spoke demon­strated a keen desired for the eco­nomic and cul­tural stim­u­lus that tourism can bring.

The stu­dent work at the fes­ti­val was archi­tec­ture and ani­ma­tion heavy. Archi­tec­ture projects ranged from pro­posed muse­ums to elab­o­rate ren­der­ings of the math­e­mat­i­cal nature of Geor­gian churches. Ani­ma­tion work retold clas­sic sto­ries, like Rashomon or The Meta­mor­pho­sis, or re-imagined major works from art history.

Among those who could not attend the fes­ti­val in per­son thanks to the vol­canic ash was the main spon­sor, Paolo Del Bianco of the Flo­rence Romualdo Del Bianco Foun­da­tion, so he Skyped in. I was totally charmed by the spec­ta­cle of Mr. Del Bianco greet­ing the fes­ti­val atten­dees with a double-handed wave as the Geor­gians waved back. Even though the two-way feed was live and pro­jected large across the wall, a sense of dis­tance was pal­pa­ble in the ges­tures as well as the affec­tion­ate for­mal­ity of the con­ver­sa­tion. Skype was fre­quently referred to as an “amaz­ing new technology.”

The Ital­ians and the Geor­gians wave to each other over Skype.

Com­ing from Par­sons, it was sur­pris­ing for me to see how much the Geor­gian stu­dents and their pro­fes­sors were reach­ing into the past for inspi­ra­tion. Par­sons’ empha­sis on inno­va­tion can leave stu­dents with lit­tle or no ground­ing in his­tor­i­cal con­text. This does not seem to be a prob­lem for stu­dents of the Art Acad­emy of Tbil­isi who fre­quently made use of local mil­len­nium old prece­dents when cre­at­ing their work.

View­ing their work, I strug­gled to glean what is hap­pen­ing in Geor­gia now and how cre­ative design prac­tices are address­ing these cir­cum­stances. Maybe this is more a con­cern of the con­tem­po­rary art scene in Tbil­isi rather than that of the Acad­emy. On this front, I felt like those of us from Par­sons had some­thing to offer. While our projects might not be as squarely grounded in his­tor­i­cal prece­dents as the work of the Geor­gian stu­dents, we con­sis­tently made an effort to use knowl­edge of the past to pro­vide inno­va­tions for the present.

Christo­pher Nes­bit, BFA Pho­tog­ra­phy 2008, pre­sented his the­sis work of draw­ings of now-destroyed New York City build­ings over con­tem­po­rary pho­tographs of where the build­ings once stood, ani­mat­ing famil­iar New York City scenes with ghostly views of what once stood there.

Georgeana Ortiz, BFA Fash­ion Design 2009, pre­sented her the­sis col­lec­tion of a sus­tain­able cloth­ing line and the later research this project inspired. Real­iz­ing that sus­tain­abil­ity goes beyond mate­ri­als used, Georgeana is devel­op­ing a resource for sus­tain­able busi­ness prac­tices for New York City’s Gar­ment District.

Dun­can Tonatiuh, BFA Inte­grated Design Stud­ies 2008, pre­sented Jour­ney of a Mix­teco, a graphic novel about Ser­gio, a Mex­i­can immi­grant to New York City, drawn in the style of Mix­teca art, the art cre­ated by Sergio’s ances­tors. This project lead to the pub­li­ca­tion of Duncan’s first book, Dear Primo, A Let­ter to My Cousin.

I pre­sented Liliput: A Pho­to­graphic Trav­el­ogue, where to I use pre-digital prece­dents for sto­ry­telling about travel, namely the Baroque Cab­i­net of Curiosi­ties, to inno­vate on visual sto­ry­telling with dig­i­tal media and repro­duce the com­fort­ing dis­ori­en­ta­tion of travel in an inter­ac­tive travel narrative.

Both Par­sons The New School for Design and The Art Acad­emy of Tbil­isi stand to gain much from fur­ther col­lab­o­ra­tion and exchange given each school’s dif­fer­ent strengths and methods.

Par­sons Aca­d­e­mic Dean Lydia Matthews (green jacket) speak­ing at the Tbil­isi State Acad­emy of Art.

Par­sons Aca­d­e­mic Dean Lydia Matthews has visit Geor­gia 6 times, and it was her pas­sion for the place the brought us there. I hope that more Par­sons stu­dents and alumni will be able learn from Georgia’s art and design scene thanks to her efforts as a liaison.

Many thanks to the Tbil­isi State Acad­emy of Art for spon­sor­ing Par­sons alumni to attend, and thanks espe­cially to the Dean of the Fac­ulty of Art Media, Nana Iashvili, for the super­hu­man effort in orga­niz­ing the festival.