Game on the Hinnom Valley (collaboration between Shotiko Aptsiauri and “War Museum of August 2008”)
Shota Aptsiauri
mixed media
2018
Ergneti village
After the war, Lia Chlachidze, a native of the coastal village Ergneti, situated at the occupational border, began collecting traces of war. The objects like bottles melted from the heat of bombs; clothes belonging toa dead soldier; half burned cradle covered in ashes and various daily objects. This woman, with the aid of the other villagers, gathered everything inside the remaining walls of a cellar ruined by war, naming it the “War Museum of August 2008.”The museum is located 50 meters from the occupational borderline. Within the frames of this collaboration, the artist exhibited the aforementioned pieces in the center of Tbilisi, Chavchavadze 52, on a football stadium. The opening has coincided with the closing day of the World Cup in soccer, taking place in Russia. The World Cup that happened simultaneously with the ongoing kidnapping and disappearance of people from the “borderline” villages of Georgia.“Game on The Hinnom Valley” was a space for reflection, pointing towards the issues hidden and ignored during the act of scrolling in the era of information. The installation, on one hand, is the artist’s commentary on the World Cup, while on the other, it stresses the importance of (and re-contextualizes) the War Museum of August 2008, focusing on the problems in the occupational border villages.