A State in a State

Abstract

A State in a State is a 2022 video work by Tekla Alsanishvili, made in collaboration with Dr Evelina Gambino. The work straddles the boundary between documentary and film, in its exploration of railroads, in particular the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway. It investigates the role that such infrastructure plays in the wake of the legacies of the Soviet Union, whereby infrastructure is entangled with the re-emergence, and maintenance of, political borders. In this interview, Ella Rowold Cavusoglu talks to Tekla Aslanishvili and Evelina Gambino. It explores the work’s themes of systems of infrastructure, their entwinement with politics, and the forms of sabotage and connectivity that emerge out of them.