Out of place?

A project curated by transitpassengers at Galleri Box, Göteborg, Sweden – 8 June to 6 July 2008

Participating artists: Jinoos Taghizadeh, Amirali Ghasemi, Seed Yanyshev, Ulan Djaparov, Sophia Tabatadze, Nadia Tsulukidze, transitpassengers

The concrete of cities = the realisation of imagination of places, of social practices, of people and identities. Cities as such are full of evidence of realised imagination along different timelines. How do you interact with places in the city? Does the place in itself create a certain sense or feeling in you or do you perceive the place from where you stand and where you come from (with your values and your collection of references from the past)? What kind of feelings emerge? Attachment. Belonging. Fear. Otherness. Recognition. Comfort. Alienation.

Then again, places are not static they change. Places are constantly fought over and re-imagined in practice, in daily life, every day. How are you involved in that constant production of meaning? Places are collectors of things, of memories, of ideas. What do you see, want to see? Places compete with each other; we label, package and sell them. Or we conserve, protect and market them. To compete you need to be unique, different, exclusive… What kind of places are we creating today in our imaginations and in practice?

Further, what has a place got to do with the ideas of global networks, fluid connections and mobility such as migration, tourism, travel or nomadism? What do we find in the imagination of place practiced and lived by a migrant, a traveller, a tourist? Can you be equally socially and geographically mobile? Mobility is contradictory, a source of freedom central to a modern human being and, simultaneously, a potential source of threat and disorder. The place one calls home can mean safety but it can also mean constraint, fear, danger.

We travel to be free (free from what?), we travel to flee commitment (commitment to what?), we long to be on the road (no home?).

Are you in place or out of place?

transitpassengers travelled from India through Central Asia, Iran, Georgia and Turkey looking for people, places and practices. Here is one version of those encounters (there are many).