Fresh from capturing SLEEK 59 cover star Hans Ulrich Obrist on a summer’s day in London, legendary photographer Martin Parr is now hitting up the Georgian capital Tbilisi — one of the fastest growing tourist spots in Europe and in case you didn’t know, the “new Berlin” apparently — for his latest photobook, Tbilisi, published by Prestel. From Belfast to Brighton, Parr has made his name documenting the minutiae of daily life in British cities, and as a leading member of the Magnum Photos cooperative, it’s safe to say that Tblilisi was in good hands when it came to authentic representation.
Truthful representation is vital for any depiction of the Georgian capital. Straddling the border between Europe and Asia with a long history of Roman, Russian and Soviet rule, Georgia possesses a rich heritage that in turn has a produced a lively and diverse capital city. Tbilisi is best described as combining “21st century European chic with world-weary Soviet influences” — a juxtaposition which Parr uses to his advantage by creating fascinating visual contrasts and lively incongruities.
Where one page of Tbilisi depicts a luxurious hotel foyer with a polished-white panther statue studded with silver bolts, on the next, you’ll find a faceless elderly woman reclining on a bench, her head and hands obscured by bin bags, or on another, a shabby street scene punctuated with worn-out furniture and decapitated statue heads that resemble profiles of leaders past. With the turn of a page, however, you’ll be back to familiar cosmopolitan sights of birthday cakes, trendy bars strung with neon lights and happy holiday-makers by the sea. This sense of the familiar side by the side the unfamiliar is a key theme in Parr’s Tbilisi. As he says of Tbilisi himself, it’s “simultaneously utterly foreign and completely familiar”.
“[The] world in many respects is very much the same. We have scooters, we drop plastic coffee cups… and we have trouble taking our eyes off our iPhones,” explains popular Georgian author Aka Morchiladze in his introduction to Tbilisi. “But apart from what we all have, you can always find something that you would never recognise.” This unexpectedness is apparent in one of Parr’s images of an aging woman sat alone and surrounded by tubs of ripe peaches and cherries for sale. On the wall behind her is a brightly coloured mural of a blonde-haired girl in a luminous pink jacket, pouting. Such a scene is emblematic of the playful contradictions caught by Parr’s lens. Undoubtedly, his colourful mixture of the recognisable and the unknown offers an invaluable insight into the unique spirit of Tbilisi.
Tblisi published by Prestel Publishing is out now.
All photographs © Martin Parr