Curator Name: Data Chigholashvili
Residency Dates: April – May 2024
Hometown: Tbilisi, Georgia
Lives & Works: The New York metropolitan area
URL: datach.me | LinkedIn | Instagram: @datachme
Education:
2012 | The Degree of Master of Science in Social Anthropology, The University of Edinburgh
2009 | The Degree of Bachelor of Humanities in History, Politics and Culture, The University of Georgia
Bio/Statement:
Data (David) Chigholashvili works at the intersection of social anthropology and contemporary art. Their research, curatorial practice, and art projects explore topics around visual and urban anthropology, ethnography, socially engaged art, natural and built environments, public space, migration, foodways, memory, queering, archives, and/or museums. Data’s projects are strongly related to the specificities of contexts and often include collaborative, educational, and/or participatory aspects.
Data has worked in arts and culture independently, also as the Curator of International Programs at the State Silk Museum, and was in the team of an artist-run organization and residency GeoAIR. They have participated in many residency and fellowship programs, presented at different conferences and events internationally, as well as written for various platforms and edited publications.
Selected projects and publications:
Curatorial projects – Pop-Up: Textiles (2022); Without Museum Objects project series including the exhibition Leafeaters and installation Cocoon Room (2021); The New Dictionary of Old Ideas (2020); exhibition series Remainders including Surviving Bodies (2019) and It’s unedited but I reconstructed (2018); Cooking Imaginations: Tbilisi Migrant Stories (2014).
Texts and publications – Mulberry Archive (The State Silk Museum, 2023); Without Museum Objects: Meditation on Mulberry Trees (The State Silk Museum, 2021); An [Imaginary] Museum of Surviving Bodies (Indigo magazine, 2021); co-authored contribution on Socially Engaged Art in Georgia (CEC ArtsLink, 2019); co-edited publications Tbilisi – It’s Complicated (Onomatopee, 2019) and city [un]archived (Onomatopee, 2015).
Click here to read a conversation between Data Chigholashvili and Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles Morel published on The Interior Beauty Salon.