Paper short abstract:

Although it is assumed that once monuments are installed, they become fixed and immovable objects, post-Soviet Georgian space reveals a constant movement and relocation of material objects. The paper specifically looks at the ways in which new iconographies of the state are being initiated, erected, transformed and relocated by political regimes and how they are contested, negotiated and tamed by different artists on the ground.

Paper long abstract:

This paper is about the transformation of material landscape and its relation to time and temporality in the city of Batumi, which is located on the Black Sea coast in the Republic of Georgia. The paper specifically looks at the ways in which new iconographies of the state are being initiated, erected, transformed and relocated by political regimes and how they are contested, negotiated and tamed by different artists on the ground.

Although it is assumed that once monuments are installed, they become fixed and immovable objects, post-Soviet Georgian space reveals a constant movement and relocation of material objects. Most of Batumi's Soviet and early post-Soviet symbols have been removed, moved, or replaced with new monuments. Memorial plaques symbolizing the Soviet legacy have been ripped off buildings, leaving (anti-memorial) "scars" on their surfaces; on the city's central square the statue of national leader of Georgia, Ilia Chavchavadze has been replaced by the Roman God Neptun, signifying the European orientation of the city; and the monument of Georgian hero, Memed Abashidze fighting against the Ottomans has been removed to less visible place because of new geo-politics of the region considering Turkey as one of the main economic partners of the country.

Drawing on these lines, this paper aims to shed light on how these movements create traces of the past and hints of future, and how actors endeavor to tame the temporal dimensions of public landscapes in Georgia.