Between Worlds: How Tbilisi Triennial Is Redefining Art Education in the Caucasus

In October 2012, a small group of artists, educators, and cultural workers gathered in a converted Soviet-era bread factory on the outskirts of Tbilisi. The building, with its crumbling concrete and rusted industrial fixtures, had become home to the Center of Contemporary Art - Tbilisi (CCA), an independent organization operating in the complex cultural landscape of post-Soviet Georgia. What began that day would evolve into one of the most distinctive art events in the Caucasus region: the Tbilisi Triennial.

Unlike the spectacle-driven biennials that dominate the global art calendar, the Tbilisi Triennial emerged with a different mission entirely. "We weren't interested in creating another showcase for finished artworks," explains Wato Tsereteli, founder of CCA and the Triennial's initiator. "Georgia didn't need another exhibition platform. What it needed was a space for thinking about art differently—a laboratory for exploring what art education could mean in a post-Soviet context."

This emphasis on education has become the Triennial's defining characteristic. The inaugural edition, titled "Offside Effect," focused explicitly on informal art education—exploring alternative approaches to artistic knowledge production outside traditional academic systems. It was a response to what Tsereteli and his colleagues identified as a critical gap in Georgia's cultural infrastructure: the absence of contemporary art education reflecting current global practices while engaging with local realities.

Georgia's post-Soviet transition had been particularly turbulent, marked by civil war, economic collapse, and political instability following independence in 1991. The country's art academy, like many cultural institutions, struggled to adapt to new realities after decades of Soviet control. "The official education system was frozen in time," explains Anna Riaboshenko, an art historian and regular collaborator with the Triennial. "Students were still being taught according to Soviet methodologies, with little exposure to contemporary concepts or practices. The gap between what was happening globally and what was being taught locally was enormous."

The Triennial emerged from this gap, not as a replacement for formal education but as a parallel structure—an "offside" position from which to reimagine what art education could be. What makes the initiative particularly significant is how it challenges conventional distinctions between exhibition and education, between showing and learning. Each edition unfolds across multiple venues and formats: workshops, research platforms, symposia, publications, and exhibitions that function more as research outputs than as conventional displays.

This approach reflects what curator Irina Popiashvili calls the "neither here nor there" position of Georgian culture. "Georgia exists at a crossroads—not fully European, not fully Asian, with historical influences from Persian, Ottoman, Russian, and Western European cultures," she notes. "The Triennial embraces this in-between status, turning it from a perceived disadvantage into a strength. It operates in multiple modes simultaneously, refusing simple categorization."

This refusal of categorization extends to the Triennial's organizational structure, which operates on a decentralized, project-based model. Rather than appointing a single artistic director who selects artists according to a curatorial concept, the Triennial functions as a framework within which multiple curators, artists, and organizations develop autonomous projects contributing to an overarching thematic exploration. "It's more like a constellation than a single entity," explains Tsereteli. "Each project has its own curator, its own participants, its own methodology—but they all orbit around a shared set of questions."

These questions have evolved over time, responding to shifting contexts both locally and globally. The second edition in 2015, "S.O.S. - Self-Organized Systems," explored community-based initiatives and self-organized structures as responses to institutional gaps. The 2018 edition centered on the concept of "Will" as a force of movement and evolution, while the most recent edition in 2022, "Microclimate/Education," investigated environments for learning and creativity. The upcoming 2025 edition, titled "Peace Pandemic," will examine peace as a contagious force with transformative potential across social, cultural, and political domains.

What unites these diverse thematic frameworks is a consistent commitment to what might be called "educational thinking"—approaching art not primarily as a set of objects or experiences to be consumed, but as a mode of critical inquiry and knowledge production. This educational emphasis has resonated particularly strongly in Georgia's post-Soviet context, where questions of cultural identity, historical memory, and social transformation remain urgently relevant.

As the Triennial approaches its fifth edition, its impact extends far beyond Tbilisi. By positioning itself at the intersection of art, education, and social practice, it has created connections between the Caucasus and global art networks while maintaining a distinct regional perspective. More importantly, it has demonstrated how a small-scale, modestly funded initiative can generate significant cultural impact by identifying and addressing specific local needs rather than replicating established international models.

"The Tbilisi Triennial shows that you don't need Venice's grandeur or documenta's budget to create meaningful interventions in contemporary culture," observes curator Viktor Misiano, who has followed the initiative since its inception. "What you need is a deep understanding of your context and the courage to imagine alternatives to existing structures. In this sense, it offers a model not just for the Caucasus but for art communities worldwide grappling with questions of relevance, sustainability, and cultural specificity."

As Georgia continues to navigate complex political and social transformations, the Triennial's emphasis on education, research, and critical thinking provides vital tools for cultural workers seeking to understand and shape these changes. By creating spaces where art becomes a mode of knowledge production rather than merely an object of consumption, the Tbilisi Triennial reminds us that art's most profound value may lie not in what it shows us, but in how it teaches us to see differently.