Horizontal forgetting

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Drawing on more than twelve years of work documenting the consequences of Russian occupation in Georgia, photographer Tako Robakidze reflects on the long-term effects of shifting borders, forced displacement, cultural erasure, and the suppression of language. Through photographs, testimonies, archival materials, and personal reflection, she traces how occupation reshapes not only territory, but also memory and everyday life.

Following stories gathered along the fractured edges of Georgia, Robakidze became increasingly interested in the relationship between memory and empathy. It reflects how fragile memory is, how people and stories slowly fade away, not only on the informational level but also on the emotional one. In a world flooded with information and disinformation, compassion is often the first thing to vanish. When we forget people, even a single person, when we lose emotional connection, we forget the very cause of their suffering. This gradual erosion of empathy can lead to long-term forgetting, making societies increasingly vulnerable to indifference, conformity, and the repetition of injustice. This reflection led her to what she describes as horizontal forgetting.

Using her ongoing work Peacekeepers as a starting point for a larger discussion, Robakidze explores how photographs can be transformed into physical experience that evoke empathy before information, while reflecting on the changing role of images, memory, and attention in contemporary society.

Tako Robakidze is a documentary photographer based in Tbilisi, Georgia. She holds degrees in law from Tbilisi State University and journalism from Caucasus University, and studied documentary photography at the Sepia School. Since 2014, she has worked as a freelance photographer in Georgia, with a particular focus on war, displacement, and the Russian occupation. Robakidze is a National Geographic Explorer and the recipient of several international fellowships and awards, including the Magnum Foundation Photography and Social Justice Fellowship, the Stanley Greene Legacy Prize, the VII Academy Fellowship, and the Alexia Award of Excellence.

This event will take place in Reid Hall’s Grande Salle Ginsberg-LeClerc, built in 1912 and extensively renovated in 2023 thanks to the generous support of Judith Ginsberg and Paul LeClerc.

The Rendez-Vous de l’Institut Series is generously supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.

This event will be recorded and may be broadcast as part of our SNF Rendez-vous de l’Institut podcast series. By participating and asking questions, you consent to the use of your voice in this context.