Exactly one year ago, we travelled to Tbilisi as
@clubcommission , joined by actors from the Berlin club scene to exchange with, listen to and learn from the people, projects and spaces shaping the local scene in Georgia.
We have just released a zine bringing together reflections and learnings from these encounters, featuring some of my analogue photographs taken during the trip. (Link in bio)
I still remember arriving alone at the airport at 4am, sleepless, catching a taxi, the driver trying to keep me awake with small talk. When he asked where I am from, I told him I was born and raised in East Germany, which immediately connected us. As we entered the city, we realised we were the same age, both just a few years old when the GDR and the Soviet Union collapsed. Too young to remember, but shaped by it nonetheless. That moment stayed with me throughout the whole trip.
Walking through Tbilisi felt strangely familiar. The architecture, the improvisation, the in between states. A city shaped by rupture and collective making.
It is striking to see how, from a country with such a traumatic recent history and shaped by systemic neglect, such a vital and energetically charged underground club scene has emerged. As Nika from the club Left Bank put it, “under conditions of oppression, counterculture becomes the only viable route.”
Clubs in Tbilisi stand at the vanguard of protest movements in a reality marked by economic hardship, injustice & acute political crisis, shaped by authoritarian shifts, anti EU sentiment, violent dispersals & repressive laws. As a result, pressure on the scene continues to intensify. In such moments, international solidarity becomes vital.
This trip showed how the Georgian club scene extends far beyond the dancefloor, creating cultural infrastructures for artistic experimentation, political education and mutual support. It also made once again clear that club culture, when rooted in solidarity and resistance, can be a powerful force for cultural and political agency.
I believe there is so much for us in Berlin to learn from this, when thinking about how we equip ourselves with integrity for increasingly uncertain political futures.
