The Mountain Speaks to the Sea
Tekla Aslanishvili
Curated by Silvia Franceschini
Exhibition
The Mountain Speaks to the Sea is the first solo exhibition in the Netherlands of Georgian filmmaker and artist Tekla Aslanishvili. The exhibition brings together Aslanishvili’s interdisciplinary and collaborative body of work, which looks into the multifaceted regimes of infrastructural governance, examining how ports, railways, and smart city projects act as technologies of citizenship and sovereignty.
Aslanishvili’s experimental documentary films Scenes from Trial and Error (2020) and A State in a State (2022) blend intimate stories and geopolitical narratives in the Caucasus and Caspian regions with macro-infrastructural transformations. The films go against the grain in their reading of the grand promises of connectivity, challenging the dominant vision of the new Silk Road. While disclosing the intricate geopolitical networks and the extractive operation behind the making of infrastructure, they observe the social fabric woven along the transit routes, excavating their potential for building lasting, transnational kinship among the people who live and work around them.
Through a dynamic moving-image landscape designed by architect Natalia Nebieridze, the exhibition presents Aslanishvili’s new cinematic project The Mountain Speaks to the Sea (2024), that reassembles fragmented (hi)stories of restructuring labor and life around the realm of global energy politics. The experimental two-channel documentary follows the rivers of the South Caucasus, tracing their paths from the mountains to the Black Sea, mapping the material and social infrastructures surrounding them through the shifting seasons. The focus culminates in the joint EU-Georgia initiative to construct the world’s longest high-voltage power grid under the Black Sea, aimed at reducing the EU’s dependency on Russia for global data and energy transmission. By intertwining personal and distant histories with myths and future orientations, the film examines how energy infrastructures are reforming not only the social and geological landscapes but also the making and unmaking of state borders and the practices of statecraft.
Opening hours
On view from October 12 until December 15. Open every Friday and Saturday between 12-5 PM.
Extra: During DDW '24, the exhibition is open all week between 11AM-6PM from October 19-27.
Public Program
Friday, October 11: Opening exhibition
We invite you to join the opening of the exhibition on Friday, October 11 between 7-10 PM at Onomatopee. More details on the programme will follow soon.
Free entrance + one free drink
Program line
“Tekla Aslanishvili. The Mountain Speaks to the Sea” is the first exhibition in the five-year program Systems and Territories, guest-curated by Silvia Franceschini. The program focuses on monographic and thematic exhibitions, which stem from long-term investigations and collaborations between artists, researchers, and communities. By exploring the shifting relations between governments, people, and their territories through the lens of large-scale infrastructure projects, Aslanishvili's exhibition tackles the intersecting issues of geopolitical tensions, energy politics, and economic globalization that affect the South of Caucasus.
Publication
The exhibition is accompanied by a publication edited by Tekla Aslanishvili and Silvia Franceschini exploring the history and potentiality of moving images in the making and unmaking of infrastructures. Positioned between an artist’s book and a reader, the volume features contributions from writers and scholars in visual culture, political science and critical geography, such as Alexandra Aroshvili, Ifor Duncan, Evelina Gambino, and Timothy Mitchell.
About Tekla Aslanishvili
Tekla Aslanishvili is an artist, filmmaker, and essayist based between Berlin and Tbilisi. Aslanishvili completed her studies at the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts in 2009 and holds a Master of Arts from the Berlin University of the Arts in Experimental Film and New Media department. Her work has been screened and exhibited internationally at Berlinische Galerie; SculptureCenter, New York; Taipei Biennial 2023; MCAD - Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, Manila; Wiels, Brussels; Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam; Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt; Transmediale 2023, Berlin; Loop Festival / Museu Tàpies, Barcelona; NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore; Neue Berliner Kunstverein; 14th Baltic Triennial; Tbilisi Architecture Biennial; Short Film Festival Oberhausen; Kunsthalle Münster. She is a 2019 Digital Earth fellow, a nominee for the Ars-Viva Art Prize 2021, and a recipient of the Han Nefkens Foundation – Fundació Antoni Tàpies Video Art Production Award 2020. Currently, Aslanishvili is a postgraduate fellow at the Berlin Centre for Advanced Studies in Arts and Sciences (BAS) at the Berlin University of the Arts.
Partnerships
The project is supported by the Italian Council program (2024) promoted by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture, Critical Media Lab HGK Basel FHNW, University of Arts Berlin, Graduate School UdK Berlin, Kommission für künstlerische und wissenschaftliche Vorhaben (KKWV) Berlin, E.A. Shared Space Tbilisi, Cultuur Eindhoven and Mondriaan Fonds.
