DEZERTERS BAZAAR SOUNDWALK (2014)

In November 2014, I was invited as fully funded artist in residence at GeoAIR in Tbilisi, Georgia. My residency was part of a larger GeoAir project, called Cooking Imaginations: Tbilisi Migrant Stories. I researched Dezerters Bazaar, the city’s largest produce market, as a public space of encounter for an array of cultural identities expressed through food. During my residency, I created an interactive soundwalk through the Dezerters Bazaar.  To create this soundwalk, I interviewed new migrants from a diverse range of origins while they were shopping on the market. Stories emerged of nostalgia, transmitted family recipes and culinary transitions, and adaptations of recipes based on the availability of ingredients in Georgia. Simultaneously, I got to know a lot of the market vendors, because I was there every day, and I started recognizing reoccurring patterns and exchanges in the everyday life of the market. This resulted in a soundwalk that guides the individual audience member through the market, weaving together the different routes of the people I had walked with, following in their footsteps throughout the space.

 The soundwalk was launched in both Georgian and English at the end of my residency and is still available for download online through GeoAIR – anyone can walk it at their own convenience. This was the first theatrical soundwalk to be developed and presented in Georgia.

Credits
Created by Marike Splint
Sound design by Lexo Janiashvili
Georgian Voice Over by Mero Dode / English Voice Over by Marike Splint
Produced by GeoAIR with support from the Prince Claus Fund

Dezerters Bazaar Soundwalk track: English and Georgian versions (44 min)

On Site Listening instructions
1.     Download the MP3 in English or Georgian to your phone, MP3 player or tablet. 
2.     With your phone, MP3 player or tablet, AND headphones go to Caffca Cafe at Dezerters Bazaar
3.     Press play.