NINO GUNIA-KUZNETSOVA
Executive director, curator and cultural policy expert
Born in Tbilisi 1964, she lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia.
Nino Gunia-Kuznetsova graduated from Tbilisi State Academy of Arts in 1988. In 2004 she was awarded a scientific pedagogical title of Docent of Fine Arts. From 1991-2017 she worked in different positions and has been teaching at various universities (Tbilisi State Academy of Arts, Georgian Technical University, Shota Rustaveli State University of Theatre and Film, IB Euro-Caucasian University, Ilia Chavchavadze State University). In 2018 she became an Accreditation Expert of the National Center for Educational Quality Enhancement.
In 1998 she designed and managed the project “Creation ofSpecialized–Experimental Workshop at the Faculty of Scenography and Introduction to Video Art Method” at Shota Rustaveli State University of Theatre and Film.
Since 2005 Nino Gunia-Kuznetsova has served as the National Expert of the Council of Europe and is in charge of producing the National Report On the Cultural Policy of Georgia.
In 2013-2016 she served as the member of the State Committee for Development of Cultural Policy and the Cultural Strategy Coordination Team of the Ministry of Culture and Monument Protection of Georgia. She participated in the development of legislative normative acts on Intangible Cultural Heritage. In 2015-2018 she led a research and monitoring project of implementation of the UNESCO Convention 2005 on Cultural Diversity.
Nino Gunia-Kuznetsova is the founder and executive director of Valerian Gunia Union of Young Theatre Artists – Georgian National Center of OISTAT (1998) and the founder and art director of Tbilisi Biennial of Stage Design (2016). She is a member of the Professional Union of Georgian Artists and the Theater Union of Georgia.
Since 1998 Nino Gunia-Kuznetsova has curated numerous exhibitions of stage design. On her initiative, Georgia was represented, for the first time, as an independent country at the Prague Quadrennial.
She was the curator of the following exhibitions: 2019 – Georgian National Pavilion at PQ19 – “The Unlocked circle”; in 2015 – Georgian National Pavilion at PQ15 – “Woman’s voice”; in 2011 – the Georgian Student Pavilion at PQ11 – “We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.” (W. Shakespeare’s – The Tempest); and in 2007 – the Georgian Student Pavilion at PQ07 –“Auditorium N15 -Always at the Edge”
She is the author and publisher of papers and articles on scenography.
CONCEPT
Rare Memories of the Future
Dedicated to the memory of the outstanding stage designer Mirian Shvelidze(1947-2022).
The Georgian exhibition, dedicated to the memory of the outstanding Georgian scenographer Mirian Shvelidze (1947-2022), is a virtual journey through the productions by the Georgian theatre classic Robert Sturua created in collaboration with Mirian Shvelidze, as immersion into the salvific world of art in the era of pandemic and war.
Rare Memories of the Future is a lonely spectator’s space filled with premonitions, combining memories of the past with a prophetic foretaste of the future and a dramatic reality… The idea of immersion in a theatrical virtual reality is based on society’s desire to consume culture as an antidote, as art is the best way to overcome the traumatic syndrome brought on by pandemic and war.
The idea is inspired by the National Rustaveli Theatre’s production “ENDGAME” by Samuel Beckett (director Robert Sturua, stage and costume designer Miron Shvelidze) which was premiered in February 2020, just days before the Covid-19 outbreak in Georgia.
The content of the Pavilion is a virtual territory, where through a historical journey from the early productions to the contemporary premieres the viewer grasps the theatrical metaphors of the ‘political theatre ‘transformed into a metaphysical ‘philosophical theatre’ by Robert Sturua.
The project was presented at the 15th Prague Quadrennial in 2023 in the Exhibition of Countries and Regions section.
Nino Gunia-Kuznetsova
Georgian National Curator of PQ23
Mirian Shvelidze (1947-2022) – painter, stage designer, People’s Artist of Georgia, winner of the Shota Rustaveli State Prize.
Education: Tbilisi State Academy of Fine Arts, Department of Painting, specialty scenography.
Miron Shvelidze, scenographer and co-creator of iconic productions by Robert Sturua, the last conceptualist of the generation of the Sixtiers who created the phenomenon of Georgian theatre, Sturua’s collaborator and scenographer of Shakespeare’s tragedies staged at the Rustaveli National Theatre.
From 1975 he was a set designer and then chief set designer with the Rustaveli Theatre. Designed the following productions at the Rustaveli Theatre:
P. Kakabadze “Kvarkvare Tutaberi”, 1974.
W. Shakespeare “Richard III”, 1979.
W. Shakespeare “King Lear”, 1987.
W. Shakespeare “Macbeth”, 1995
G. Robakidze, “Lamara“, 1997.
I. Chavchavadze “Is a Man a Human”, 2000.
W. Shakespeare “Hamlet”, 2001.
S. Beckett “Waiting for Godot”, 2002.
S. Beckett “ENDGAME”, 2020.
and others.
He collaborated with other Georgian and foreign theatres.