Produced by artist, filmmaker and essayist Tekla Aslanishvili, A State in a State is an experimental documentary tackling the railroads in the South Caucasus and Caspian regions as political borders. It will be screened for free in Bacolod’s Art District beginning September 23.
The 2022 single-channel film traces the construction, disruption and fragmentation of railroads in the two said regions in today’s Russia. It studies the tracks as the technical materialization of the fragile political borders that emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It likewise explores how the iron foundations of connectivity can be used for exclusion and geopolitical sabotage.
A State in a State was developed through an artistic-scientific collaboration with Dr. Evelina Gambino, Margaret Tyler Research Fellow in Geography at the Girton College of the University of Cambridge.
It was produced by the Han Nefkens-Fundació Antoni Tàpies Video Art Production Grant 2020 in cooperation with Art Jameel Dubai, Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD) Manila of the De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde (DLS-CSB), NTU Center for Contemporary Art (CCA) Singapore, and WIELS Brussels. It was supported by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe.
Stationed in Berlin and Tbilisi, Aslanishvili’s creations emerge at the intersection of infrastructural design, history and geopolitics. She graduated from the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts in 2009 and holds an MFA from the Department of Experimental Film and New Media Art of Berlin University of the Arts. She is a fellow of the 2018–2019 Digital Earth, a nominee for the 2021 Ars-Viva Art Prize, and a recipient of the 2020 Han Nefkens Foundation-Fundació Antoni Tàpies Video Art Production Award.
A State in a State is an exhibition under MCAD Commons. Removed from the main gallery of the museum, it brings MCAD’s singular programming to a larger audience to allow for engagement with creative development, exchange of ideas and support of the artistic process across the areas of research, art practice, and curatorial discourse.
Included in the line-up is an in-person artist talk with Aslanishvili, who will walk the audience into the process of A State in a State. She will likewise educate attendees on Scenes from Trial and Error, her 2020 experimental docu that examines the failed development of a port and city on the Black Sea shore. She will also share her ongoing project on renewable energy infrastructures in the South Caucasus. It will be conducted on October 22.
Negros Occidental Historical Council, Inc. Chairman Neil Solomon L. Locsin will also give a lecture on October 5 regarding the network of railways in Negros and its significance and impact on the local sugar industry.
A State in a State will run from September 23 to October 23.
The exhibition and the discussions will all be on view at the Orange Project in Art District, Lopue’s Annex Building, Lacson St., Bacolod City, Negros Occidental.
For more information, call 82305100 local 3897 or send an email to mcad@benilde.edu.ph.
