ტყის ვარდი/Wild Rose

The audio walk “ტყის ვარდი” (“Wild Rose”) was created by Mareike Wenzel for the Transgender Day of Rememberence in colaboration with WISG Tbilisi (Women’s Initiatives Supporting Group) and transgender activists.

For this project Mareike interviewed members of the transgender community in Tbilisi and together with sound designer Ana Jikia, created an audio walk connecting the different narrations and stories with places in the city. Participants of the walk were invited to take a look at the city from a different perspective, rethink their own perceptions and also confront themselves with own preconceptions and prejudices.

This audio walk has been the continuation in the collaboration of Mareike and WISG, they have been collaborating on various projects since 2013. They previously created the performance “Night and Day” together with transgender activist.

For security reasons the tour won’t be uploaded here and the QR codes on the map have been deactivated. Should you be interested in doing the tour and listening to it, please contact Mareike Wenzel (mareikespost@web.de) or WISG and you will be sent the access links. So far the tour is only in Georgian language, there will be an English version coming soon.

ტყის ვარდი/Wild Rose

Concept and artistic director: Mareike Wenzel

With: Gabi, Iulia, Nata, Tako and Vova

Production and coordination: Natalia Mchedlishvili

Sound design: Ana Jikia

Interviews conducted by: Nino Kalandia, Nino Kharchilava, Mareike Wenzel

Songs: Vova

Map design: Sophya Stavrogyna

Press: Nattan Guliashvili

Special thanks to: Ekaterine Gejadze and Nino Gogua

A production for WISG

The tour:

Tbilisi – the city we are living in, the city of our daily routines, of our everyday streets and life, places. We think, we are familiar with all this and expect everyone to see the same, but still there are different perspectives.

This city is full of contradictions and traces of all those living here. Some of us can’t walk the streets like others, some have to take precautions before leaving the house. The happy place for one, is the miserable place for others.

In this tour, four transgender people from Tbilisi will take you through one part of the city. They will invite you to follow them for a short time and to look at all those everyday places from their perspective.

This is about letting go of own views and images and following other narrations. It is not about finding new hidden places, but rather changing the perspective and being open to look at the city from a different angel and who knows, maybe all our “different cities” are not always that different after all.

Press:

An article about the walk in English by Umberto Bacchi/Thomas Reuters Foundations News can be found here

A glimpse into the audio walk by Netgazeti:

Photo documentation of the walk by WISG:

Comments written by participants of the audio tour: