Vija Skangale is a writer, curator, and researcher from Georgia currently based between Tbilisi and London. She is a PhD candidate and a visiting lecturer at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. Vija has participated in various art projects, including those at Kunsthalle Tbilisi, Tate Modern Late, and Tate Exchange, among many others. Vija’s written work has been published in outlets such as MoMA C-MAP, S.M.A.K. Museum, Biennial Foundation, the Calvert Journal, and the Tbilisi Public Art Fund, among many others.
Vija’s practice lies between trauma, memory, body and performances (including performance re-enactments). Her research focuses on the exhibition histories within the context of post-socialist transitions. She examines under-documented performance practices and exhibition histories in Georgia, aiming to broaden our understanding of performance-making during significant cultural and political transformation. In 2025, she founded the Institute for Contemporary Art Research in Georgia.
Karlo Kacharava (1964–1994), a prominent Georgian artist, writer, art critic, and poet, has been referred to as “the voice of his generation” and a “supernova.” In my contribution to the book Karlo Kacharava: Sentimental Traveller, published in 2023 on the occasion of Kacharava’s solo exhibition in Ghent at S.M.A.K., I discuss the intertwining of his “oceanic” body of work, both visual and written, with his short but extraordinary life.
What is common and what differs between Georgian artist collectives of the late 1980s and those of today are among the questions explored by curator and researcher Vija Skangale in this text.
