Old Homeland - New Homeland

Dea Tcholokava spent a six-month Goethe-Institut scholarship at the documenta archive in Kassel in 2025. There she researched traces of Georgian artists in the history of documenta and connected this search with her own observations on migration. The core of the studio exhibition is her 18-minute film essay From Countless Sleepless Nights, a poetic film diary about foreignness, belonging, and identity - interwoven with city walks, archival finds, and unexpected protagonists like the Kassel raccoons. The film is complemented by selected archival materials from the history of documenta, such as those related to Jonas Mekas, Olu Oguibe, Georgij Schengelaia, Pavel Braila, or Hans Haacke, creating a dialogue between personal research and institutional memory. Tcholokava lives in Berlin and Tbilisi, works as a filmmaker and editor, and has been represented internationally at festivals with her documentaries. Her latest short film What Does the Mud Whisper premiered in Krakow in 2025 and has received multiple awards.