Old home - new home

The Georgian filmmaker Dea Tcholokava spent six months at the documenta archiv in Kassel in 2025 as a Goethe-Institut scholarship holder. During her stay, she set out in search of traces of Georgian artists in the history of documenta. At the same time, she approached the complex topic of migration.

At the center of the studio exhibition is her 18-minute film essay From Countless Sleepless Nights. In it, she interweaves research in the documenta archive with forays through the city. Dea Tcholokava has turned her chance encounters and observations into a cinematic diary. The result is a poetic and at the same time personal reflection on foreignness and familiarity, identity, origin, belonging and coexistence. In addition to the art of the documenta, such as Olui Oguibe's Strangers and Refugees Monument, the examination of personal stories and life paths also allows unexpected protagonists to come to the fore: the Kassel raccoons, which become active in parks, gardens and backyards after dark and - intentionally or not - have long since made themselves at home in the documenta city.

Based on the thematic motifs, Tcholokava's film is framed by a selection of archive material from the history of documenta. In this way, the presentation opens up a dialog between cinematic research and institutional memory. Among others, archival material on the documenta contributions by Jonas Mekas, Olu Oguibe, Georgij Schengelaia, Pavel Braila and Hans Haacke will be presented.