A State in a State

2022

Video
Materials: Singel-channel video, duration: 47'

Collection: Courtesy the artist. Collection M HKA.

Tekla Aslanishvili makes experimental documentaries that focus on transport, trade and extraction infrastructures, and their connection to politics and geopolitical developments. A State in a State is the outcome of her research made together with specialists from various disciplines into the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway — a trading ‘corridor’ as part of Turkey’s ambitious Middle Corridor initiative linking Central Asia with Turkey. The railway was established as a result of the first Nagorno-Karabakh war in 1993, and its aim was to isolate Armenia by building a railway connection between Azerbaijan and Turkey, via Georgia.

A State in a State examines railways as the technical materialisation of fragile political borders that have re-emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Revolving around scenes of waiting and delay that constitute cargo mobility, the film reads the optimistic narratives about the New Silk Road against the grain. It observes how the iron foundation of connectivity can be used as a weapon of exclusion and geopolitical sabotage. Along the same lines, other forms of sabotage are deployed by workers to disrupt the political violence. Looking at historic and current practices of resistance, A State in a State explores the potential of railroads for building a different, infrastructural consciousness and the lasting, transnational kinship among the people who live and work around them.

Credits 

A State in a State, Tekla Aslanishvili, 2022, 47min., Georgian, Russian and English Spoken

English Subtitles   

The film is developed in artistic-scientific collaboration with Dr. Evelina Gambino, Margaret Tyler Research Fellow in Geography at Girton College, University of Cambridge.  

Research & Script: Tekla Aslanishvili / Evelina Gambino
Music: Ani Zakareishvili / Nika Pasuri
Cinematography: Nikoloz Tabukashvili / Tekla Aslanishvili
Typography: Dato Simonia
Editing: Tekla Aslanishvili
Field recordings: Viktor Bone
Sound mastering: Irakli Shonia
Colour: Sally Shamas

Produced by The Han Nefkens Foundation, Barcelona

With the support of Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona; NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore; WIELS, Brussels; Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD) Manila and Art Jameel, Dubai.  Additional support: Berlin Senate for Culture and Europe

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Credits

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Design / Bart De Baere, Kristof Michiels

Development / Kristof Michiels, 10to1

Coordination / Evi Bert

Texts / M HKA

Editors / Lotte Beckwé, Evi Bert, Lotte Bode, Wanda Detemmerman, Sofie Gregoor, Bjorn Scherlippens, Piet Van Hecke, Ekaterina Vorontsova, Hans Willemse

Translations / PORTAAL (EN-NL, NL-DE, NL-FR, NL-EN), Steven Tallon (EN-NL), Isabelle Grynberg (EN-FR), Marijke Vermeulen (EN, NL-DE)

Support / M HKA Library