LibertyCon Exhibition

Lisbon, Portugal, 2023

In March 2023, Tbilisi Collective curated a photo exhibition in Lisbon, Portugal, as part of LibertyCon – a conference organized by Students for Liberty. The exhibition responded to the mass protests in Georgia following the proposed Foreign Agents law – a bill modeled after Russia’s 2012 legislation targeting NGOs and media outlets receiving foreign funding.

Tuesday, March 7th, 2023 marked “a dark day for Georgian democracy” as the Georgian Parliament passed the first reading of the Foreign Agents law which would require all media outlets and non-governmental organizations that receive 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “foreign agents”. This would subject them to monitoring and possible sanctions from the government. The law is a replication of the bill that was passed by the Kremlin in 2012 which led to the suppression of Western-funded NGOs and media outlets. In other words, the adoption of this law in Georgia would tremendously damage the country’s democratic values and its future on the European path of development.

Georgia has been struggling to escape from the Russian scope of influence for centuries. Up to this day, Russia occupies 20% of Georgia’s territories. The attempt of the parliament to adopt the so-called Russian Law awoke a sense of furiousness in civilians who justifiably felt that they were being deprived of their liberty. As a result, tens of thousands of protesters gathered outside the parliament carrying Georgian, EU and Ukrainian flags while shouting: “No to the Russian Law.” Even though the police used water cannons, tear gas and stun grenades against the unarmed protesters, the protests lasted for three days with the bill failing to pass the second hearing in the parliament.

The curation focused on imagery that captured both the emotional texture and political urgency of the movement, from intimate portraits of defiance to wide shots of crowds and confrontation. Through this process, we assembled a visual narrative of resistance, one that blended personal expression with collective strength.

See more images from the exhibition on our Instagram: @tbilisi.collective