Berlin-based Georgian artist’s border installation displayed at Berlin Wall

An artistic display connecting remains of the Berlin Wall with the ongoing separation of Georgia’s occupied regions from the rest of the country hosted viewers outside the German capital on Saturday.

Exhibited by Berlin-based Georgian artist Besik Maziashvili, the installation explored a theme of borders through an artistic attempt to “interrupt and alterate” their logic in the contemporary political realm.

For the work titled 65 Degrees the creative used a signpost erected by forces controlling Georgia’s Tskhinvali (South Ossetia) province since its occupation by the Russian military in 2008.

In his installation Maziashvili used a signpost erected by occupying forces at the administrative boundary between the occupied Tskhinvali province and rest of Georgia. Photo: Georgia’s Embassy to Germany.

Bearing a warning about a “state border”, the signpost was installed leaning on a fragment of the Berlin Wall in the town of Teltow.

Covered in a mirror box, the installation represented the author’s take at underlining parallels from different eras and locations as “new walls are being built and history repeats itself in Europe”.

“Nevertheless, the essence of 65 Degrees [is that] walls will fall and families will reunite”, said a summary for the display.

Visitors view the site of the display. Photo: Georgia’s Embassy to Germany.

Also taking aim at a more general subject of borders, the display was an attempt to open up a “space of resistance and critical imagination, where the transparent, immutable and essentialist representation of the border” is challenged.

The opening of 65 Degrees involved Georgia’s Ambassador to Germany Elguja Khokrishvili as well as a group of Georgian troops preparing in Germany for their peacekeeping deployment to Afghanistan.

Born in Georgia, Maziashvili works in sculpture and installation. His creations explore a personal history in the context of room and space.

In 2014 his work was exhibited at the Berlin Museum of European Cultures.