Soso Dumbadze
A Yellow Bus
pp. 30-31, Soso Dumbadze, 15-channel video installation, 16:9, 17:53 min., 2017
Courtesy the artist
On May 17, 2013, during the International Day Against Homophobia, a fanatical crowd of thousands, led by an Orthodox priest, attacked a group of forty citizens peacefully demonstrating for LGBT rights in Tbilisi. The demonstrators had to flee into the yellow city buses but even there, they were not safe. The aggression with which the crowd attacked the small group surprised both the protesters and the police. Soso Dumbadze created an installation, consisting of fifteen monitor screens, from footage recorded by journalists, agents of violence and those threatened. Five years later, in 2018, he planned to present this installation at the exact location where the demonstration took place, to commemorate the event. However, due to the threat of renewed attacks by fanatical crowds it was held under the protection of about 100 policemen.
Soso Dumbadze, born 1981 in Tbilisi, graduated from the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. He was awarded a PhD by the University of Fine Arts of Hamburg. He is a professor at the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs. His works were presented at the Bundeskunsthalle Bonn, Art Cologne. His films have been screened at IDFA, Dok-Leipzig, First Look NYC. 2006 he founded »Sa.Ga. Publishing for Society« publishing authors such as Walter Benjamin, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Harun Farocki. He lives in Tbilisi.
