2025-ongoing

Place on the map

Akarmara is an abandoned mining settlement in Abkhazia, a territory that constitutes a partially recognized state. This place has witnessed the heyday of the Soviet industrial utopia, armed conflict, and the collapse of the ideological dogma of the past. Today, Akarmara’s identity is shaped by the accumulation of tourist experiences that define it as a “ghost town.” 

I visited this place as a tourist and once again encountered a familiar situation: my photographs mirrored those of another tourist. Approaching the tourist as an existential figure endowed with the capacity for movement, desire, and imagination, I explore the meaning of images that reproduce one another — or the meaning embodied by the individual.