Art & Innovation Hub Opens in Tbilisi
This week, the Center of Contemporary Art – Tbilisi announced the creation of the first Art and Innovation Hub in Georgia.
At a press conference at Rooms Hotel on Monday, May 13, the Center of Contemporary Art – Tbilisi explained that the new Hub is being established in large part thanks to a new cooperation agreement with Adjara Group Hospitality, who agreed to a long-term transfer of property to CCA-Tbilisi to serve as the Center’s new home base. The press conference featured several presenters: Vato Tsereteli, founder of the Center of Contemporary Art – Tbilisi, Valeria Chekheria – CEO of Adjara Group Hospitality, Ana Riaboshenko – Director of Creative Georgia, and Levan Kharatishvili – Deputy Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sport of Georgia. The speakers discussed the importance of supporting the development of creativity and the arts in Georgia.
The Center of Contemporary Art – Tbilisi is an independent, non-profit, community-based institution that serves as a station for people working in international, regional and local art scenes to connect and collaborate. The center aims to promote sharing and knowledge production among diverse populations, including art curators, artists, students and people simply interested in art. While the center emphasizes that education remains at the core of its work, they are also active in other realms: exhibition practice, research, residence programs and consulting.
2019 marks 10 years of the Center of Contemporary Art – Tbilisi, which implements public projects related to arts, culture, and education. During the press conference, the center took the opportunity to summarize their key projects from the last decade, and presented their plan for the future of the institution, including a reshaped strategy.
The creation of the Hub is financed in part with funds disbursed from a competition held by Creative Georgia titled “Developing Creative Industries.” The competition was run under the purview of the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture, and Sport. The funds will support the long-term development of the Art and Innovation Hub, which includes the creation of several clusters which will promote the sustainable development of creative industries, and innovative ideas and projects in the long-term. The Hub’s physical space, donated by Adjara Group, is a 650 m2 building on Dodo Abashidze St., near Marjanishvili metro station. The interdisciplinary project brings together leading innovators and bright young startups from various creative industries: fine arts, digital technologies, architecture, design, handicraft, gastronomy, and others.
Creative Georgia is a legal entity of public law within the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture, and Sport, tasked with creating an appropriate environment for creative industries to develop, via relevant programs, projects and grants. Their work is predicated on the concept that creative industries create jobs, and generate economic growth and social well-being. Creative Georgia works to raise awareness of creative industries; build the capacity of creative entrepreneurs though training programs, seminars and other activities; establish networking platforms; create funding opportunities and spread information about existing funding opportunities; support the export of creative goods and the internationalization of the sector; support the development of research activities in the creative industries sector.
Source: Georgiatoday.ge, By Samantha Guthrie
Image: Center of Contemporary Art – Tbilisi
Wine Tea – Brilliant Georgian Innovation
‘Wine Tea’ project is the winner of Startup Georgia state program. One of its authors is Giorgi Bukia, who says that the idea to produce wine tea belongs to a pharmacologist named Irakli Natroshvili, who was making a research on the beneficial characteristics of red wine (Saperavi) 25 years ago.
He says various kinds of experiments were carried out and as a result, a loose mass obtained was named a wine tea. Bukia also says this project had been left unattended for years and 2 years ago Irakli Natroshvili’s son Giogi Natroshvili decided to revive it. He brought the project to Giorgi Bukia and they presented it to the Startup Georgia program. As the author of the project says, there are several stages of wine processing and the resulted loose mass is packaged. As for the preparation, it is not any different from the regular tea.
According to him, there are only experimental samples of products today – serial production will start from November when the enterprise is finished. The search for the place to set up the enterprise is taking place currently and presumably it will be located in Kakheti region of eastern Georgia. At the initial stage the product will be sold on the local market. In addition, the samples were sent to Ukraine and Russia. Giorgi Bukia believes that there is a prospect of wine tea in Muslim countries as well where alcohol is prohibited but they love the aroma of wine.
One of the authors of the project plans to develop other Georgian varieties of wine in future, but at this stage the focus is on Saperavi. “Wine Tea” will be marketed by “Amato” brand. According to Giorgi Bukia, they plan close cooperation with wine companies and tea producers in the future. The “Wine Tea” project was funded by Startup Georgia project with 100 thousand Georgian laris.
Source: Allwine.ge, Photo: Georgianjournal.ge