diego mikava
Visual Artist | Based in Vienna and Tbilisi
Parallel Vienna 2026 | Pavilion 7, Room 310 | Artist Statement
The Wind Will Rise
fascinated by forcing contradictions together: a massive iron skyscraper "making out" with a coal mining area, or concrete utility poles having a strange romance with greenish water plants during a power shortage. My collages created crushing spots for these characters to exist—bringing them into a specific context where they belonged, yet had been erased from in reality.
Eventually, I turned the lens inward, replacing found printed matter with own photographs capturing the gentrification and shifting landscapes of Tbilisi. These images document the lingering shocks of the 1990s economy: cut-down grapevines, buildings frozen between privatization and abandonment, wheat fields turned into trailer parks.
by Hariharalle collective
Euroremonti
In the post-Soviet landscape, few phenomena encapsulate the clash between capitalist aspiration and material reality as vividly as Euroremonti (ევრორემონტი). Emerging in the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse, "Euro-renovation" became a cultural obsession—a feverish attempt to purge the heavy, standardized ghosts of Soviet architecture and replace them with the glossy, individualized promise of Western Europe.
Yet, this dream of European elegance was rarely imported directly from Paris or Vienna. Instead, it was bought piecemeal from local discount markets: mountains of cheap laminate flooring, synthetic archways, hollow drywall, and imitation marble.
After bathing
"In my collages, there is a visual reference to lightboxes. At night, when we went clubbing, we had to pass through the Deserter's Bazaar, where lightboxes glowed with advertisements for printing services, coffee, and cigarettes. Mass-produced objects—such as gay porn imagery, magazines, and tape—come together to form something like a self-portrait of me, set within the capitalist world that constantly surrounds us."
