Lado Darakhvelidze is interested in urban informality expressed in local markets or in city hitchhiking. He explores the remaining shades of Soviet multiculturalism, its modes of self-management, resourcefulness and originality. He is developing a map of St. Petersburg and an installation based on grassroots entrepreneurship, through the resourceful yet invisible labor force of migrants. The artist believes that the collective energy generated by markets is comparable to that of public assemblies, where Armenians, Azeris, Ossetians, Abkhazis, and Central Asians work side by side. While Russian society shares skepticism about organized protest, its inclination toward self-organization can be revolutionary. Apparently after the occupation of South Ossetia in 2008, more Georgian restaurants appeared in the city in response.

Lado Darakhvelidze’s artistic practice focuses primarily on the phenomena of information media and their sociopolitical impacts. In his work he deals with social and political changes and represents these in personal narratives. In his previous work, he reflected subtly and poetically on the transitions and relocations of national symbols in post-communist countries, expanding the political to encompass mythology, history, and storytelling. Darakhvelidze’s work has been shown at the eleventh Istanbul Biennial What keeps mankind alive (2009), Biennale Cuvee, Linz (2010), and at The Kitchen / CEC Artslink New York’s One Big City (2013), among others. In 2012 Darakhvelidze joined the Artist Pension Trust.

Transformers Petersburg, 2014
Vitebsk Station,
Zagorodny av. 52
July 9–10
4:00 p.m.–8:00 p.m.