This year, the europalia art festival will be dedicated to Georgia. For four months, starting 4 October 2023, the heart of Europe will be bustling with a rich programme of exhibitions, performances, concerts, films, dance, theatre productions and literature showcasing Georgia’s fascinating culture and the art scene of its bustling capital, Tbilisi, alongside that of lesser-known cities and regions.
Every two years, europalia compiles a diverse artistic programme focusing on a country or a theme. For four months, in Belgium and its neighbouring countries, the festival, in collaboration with a wide network of cultural partners, presents a biennial with a myriad of artistic and socio-cultural projects that bring together visual arts, performing arts, film, music, literature and debate to stimulate an exchange of ideas.
Maisie Woodford © Marc Wellens 
Motherland © KoenBroos
Newly commissioned projects and artistic residencies hold a central place in the programme, which engenders a unique interaction between heritage and art. In a broader sense, the festival shows Georgia beyond clichés and gives a voice to, among others, Georgian women and youngsters and to lesser-known traditions, regions and artists.
The tradition of polyphony, or multi-voice singing – very different from Western polyphony – unites all Georgians and is the first major common thread throughout the programme. Renowned Georgian choirs will perform in numerous projects and in various venues.
The programme is also inspired by supras – gatherings around richly filled tables, accompanied by chants and speeches from toastmasters – and challenges contemporary artists to creatively and critically explore this living tradition in interdisciplinary creations.
The second core theme is ‘remembrance’. How do you, as a society and as an individual, deal with memories of the Soviet regime or of recent or ongoing conflicts? The festival brings artists into dialogue to discuss these topics, including the practice of commemoration. Georgians take a very different approach to loss and grief, as seen in their commemorations of the dead in various forms and traditions.
The avant-garde in Georgia (1900-1936) at Bozar (Brussels) will be the opening exhibition. It will highlight for the very first time a largely forgotten chapter of avant-garde art in Europe. In the 1910s and 1920s, an art scene blossomed in Georgia, centring on taverns and cafes opened and decorated by artists from various backgrounds. These artists blended Georgian traditions with elements from the East and West in a unique art that fell into oblivion due to the repression and censorship of the Soviet regime. The exhibition brings together paintings, drawings, film, photography, poetry and costume and theatre designs from this artistic laboratory and gives a voice to these artists, many of whom were persecuted during the Soviet era.
A cultural heritage exhibition at the Art & History Museum in Brussels will showcase together never-before-seen treasures from museums all over Georgia, offering fascinating insights into this complex region and testifying to the many cultural exchanges and migrations, starting from the Bronze Age. These include Georgia’s wine culture – the oldest one in the world – and the forging of (precious) materials, which made the region attractive to diverse cultures.
While additional content, themes and disciplines are yet to be announced, europalia promises numerous new, interdisciplinary creations, curated in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth of Georgia.
