NIABI

The story of NIABI began a few months ago, when Ani Abramidze and Nika Khabelashvili first contacted Secant Space. At the time, they were preparing to set off on a long-distance bicycle journey across Europe, North Africa and South America, combining travel with their artistic practices through residencies, exhibitions and encounters along the way. Istanbul was to be their first stop, where they would present their work after a residency at Kirte Okulu in Çanakkale. For months, they prepared: mapping out routes, making contacts and planning the different stages of the journey. But things did not go as expected. Two months before their departure, health circumstances made such a long and physically demanding journey impossible. The project had to be abandoned, and with it a way of life they had imagined for themselves over the coming years.

At this turning point, Ani and Nika remembered a piece of land they had passed while cycling between Tbilisi and Gori. Niabi. They had stopped there and thought that they could imagine living in such a place. A few days later, they came across an advertisement: a small plot of land was for sale, precisely in Niabi. They decided to turn their project around.

What had started as a nomadic project gradually became a project about settling.

This would be the place where they would live and build a house, but also where they would invite artists for residencies and organize exhibitions. If they could no longer travel towards others, others could come to them. The works presented in NIABI grew out of this shift. The surrounding landscape appears repeatedly in the drawings: quiet, open views shaped by the presence of wind. From their land, a few wind turbines can be seen turning just behind the hill. Wind turbines are still relatively uncommon in Georgia, making their presence in this otherwise quiet landscape particularly striking. Often, only their blades appear above the hill, creating what the artists describe as a kind of “sky show.” When the wind changes direction, the turbines turn away. Ani and Nika compare it to suddenly watching the same performance from backstage.

Iron and wire introduce another part of the story. They come directly from the construction taking place on the land, but gradually acquired a broader meaning in their work. Building here is not only about constructing a physical house. The construction materials become traces of the sometimes difficult process of reaching that place. Home is also an emotional and mental space. And sometimes the way towards it passes through iron structures.

Their exhibition in Istanbul still carries something of the journey they had originally imagined. Even after abandoning the larger plan, they decided to keep this part of it. What changed was the story they wanted to tell.

THE ARTISTS

Ani Abramidze (*2000) studied visual arts at Ilia State University before completing her MA at the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts, specializing in printmaking.

Nika Khabelashvili (*1999) studied visual arts at the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts, completing both his BA and MA with a specialization in painting. They work both independently and together, allowing their individual practices to meet around a place they are now gradually building and inhabiting.