NACHKLANG – Georgia one year after the war



I have been visiting Georgia during the Russian-Georgian war in August 2008 when I have been photographing in particular the situation of internally displaced people during that time.



Now, one year after the war, I have been revisiting Georgia and the places that I have been photographing a year ago. Through a series of decidedly allegorical and metaphorical composites I am attempting to highlight the situation in Georgia as it represents itself to me now: a country still marred by the repercussions and after-effects of the war, a country more than ever torn between denied access to the west and a territorial integrity in tatters, and its people being left with a broken democracy. A Georgia more than ever in limbo.



My concept is to create composites consisting of one image taken in August 2008 and one image taken a year later at the same location, and – in a sense - by combining the two images and collapsing them into one frame, stripping off the dimension of time and leaving the continuum of space: so much has changed and yet so little.



My aim is not to create one “seamless” composite image but one that is clearly and visibly a combined image, the photographic equivalent of a Brecht epic theatre piece, a disturbance to the viewer.



Uwe Schober, Tbilisi, August 2009.