The Memory-Driven Art of Mariam Akubardia

| Ana Tsikhelashvili |

Mariam Akubardia’s art is an unending release - an intimate outpouring of the inner world onto canvas. The Georgian artist, born in occupied Gali, gently unearths the memories and stories she once recited like mantras in childhood, pulling them from the quiet corners of her mind and giving them form through paint. Her creative voice has been shaped by years spent among abandoned homes and evenings steeped in war stories. In this interview, we step into Mariam’s evocative world - a tapestry woven from personal and collective memory, where emotions too vast for words find a visible, hauntingly beautiful form.

Mariam, where does your artistic inspiration come from?

Not long after the war in Abkhazia, in 1994, my father returned to occupied Gali. He was part of a UN mission, there to support the local population, and for the next 30 years, he served both the Abkhaz and Georgian communities. He’s a dentist by profession, but his role became something much deeper. Once things had “calmed down” somewhat, my mother, sister, and I joined him. We spent every summer and winter holiday there. In many ways, I grew up - at least partly - in occupied Gali. My grandmother looked after a neighboring abandoned house - she would open the windows, air it out, tend to it gently. My sister and I were captivated by it. We loved exploring its stillness, its forgotten corners. Just behind our house was a bombed-out kindergarten. At night, it became a refuge for jackals.

At night, in the heart of the city, I remember the sound - deafening, inescapable - just twenty meters away. It added a chilling weight to everything around us. To this day, I can’t forget the image of toys floating in the swampy yard of the kindergarten, haunting relics of an interrupted childhood. In the evenings, neighbors would gather in the street, recounting their stories - tales of war’s cruelty, each one a quiet testimony to the violence inflicted by Russia.

Whether seen or told, I held onto every detail with quiet precision. These memories didn’t just linger - they sank deep, settling into the layers of my mind.

I came to understand that my childhood was unlike that of other children. The accumulation of experiences - quiet, heavy, and unresolved - left a lasting mark. In many ways, it was that emotional gravity that drew me toward making art.

Because of the war, you were forced to leave your home. How did that experience shape who you are - and in what ways has it found its way into your art?

I was two years old when we left our home. I don’t remember the moment itself - but I remember what came after. A relative took us in, in Zugdidi, where hundreds of people, just like us, were constantly arriving and leaving. Emotionally, it was impossible to make sense of. You fall out of a life that was orderly, structured, secure and suddenly, you’re thrown into chaos. For a child, it was crushing. I remember a time when my grandfather hadn’t seen us in a while. I was playing in the yard when a man approached me with a toy in his hand. I ran off and asked, “Who is that man?” I remember my grandfather cried. War doesn’t need to kill you to destroy you. It devastates people emotionally. Everything I create is rooted in these stories. People often ask me, Don’t you want to explore something else?

When every displaced person is able to live with dignity, only then will I have said all I need to say. Maybe then, I’ll begin to explore other themes.

How do you remember Abkhazia? Is there a particular piece in your work that most powerfully captures your earliest memories of that place?

I remember Abkhazia with a bittersweet tenderness. There was a certain heaviness to it - but it was softened by the pure joy of my grandparents, a joy that lit up every time they saw us. And I can’t not speak about the beauty of our yard - its rare, almost surreal aesthetic: citrus groves, agaves, palm trees, banana plants. It was a true subtropical jungle, right outside our door.

That aesthetic played a significant role in shaping the style of my paintings.

Each year we returned, the weight of absence grew heavier. There was always one less neighbor - the place slowly emptied out, until silence replaced community. My grandparents’ generation passed on. My parents’ generation faded under the quiet burden of depression. When someone died, it was rarely due to illness. They simply went to sleep and didn’t wake up. People vanished in search of a better life. The cities were overtaken by nature - completely reclaimed. It was heartbreaking to witness. Even now, I struggle to fully make sense of it. My grandparents took their dream of returning home with them. My paintings are a reflection of it all - a fusion of human sorrow and nature’s quiet triumph, bursting through concrete and over abandoned cities.

The work "Agave Is Burning, But We Don’t Notice" captures my earliest memories of Abkhazia more than any other piece.

Some fragments of the painting were taken from my parents’ wedding photos. I believe it’s still burning even now and we still don’t see it.

Your work doesn’t just tell personal stories - it also serves as a form of quiet documentation. What would you say is your central focus as an artist?

I’m grateful if that’s how it comes across - because that’s exactly what I’m trying to do. Nearly 300,000 people never had the chance to tell their story. Many stayed silent, out of shame or the feeling that their voice didn’t matter. I don’t want us - the displaced - to be reduced to numbers. Today, we all face uncertainty in some form, but for 32 years, displaced people have been fighting simply for the right to live with basic dignity. That’s my focus: to create a living archive through art. So that somewhere, in some form, our voices are heard.

Is your art an attempt to reconnect with Abkhazia or is it your own way of processing loss and distance?

That’s a difficult question one that calls for depth and care. But I’ll try to answer it simply and clearly. Before we can speak of reconnection, we have to move through other stages of reflection. We can’t skip over a process that, after 32 years, has yet to truly begin. Just as the body needs healing before it can recover, people need time, care, and recognition before restoration is even possible. We have to return to the beginning. Displaced people must be given space to speak, to process their experiences, to undergo real rehabilitation and to live with dignity. Yes, there is loss. Yes, there is distance. But what makes displacement even more painful is the sense of being cut off, uprooted, torn from something vital. That’s what I’m still trying to make sense of.

What does “home” mean to you now? Has that sense shifted over the years?

Home isn’t just walls, is it? It’s the life you share with people - the experiences, the memories, the history. When we were forced to move to Zugdidi, we first stayed with relatives, and later moved into a rented house. All of my classmates had homes where their parents and their grandparents had been born and raised. Whenever the question of “home” came up, my parents would naturally point to our house in Gali. They would tell me and my sister, That’s your real home - the one your great-grandfather built, where generations of our family grew up.

From that moment on, I developed a deep attachment to our house in occupied territory—but it was always layered with dissonance. The land was no longer ours, yet the house was? That tension has stayed with me - a quiet, persistent duality. And yet, it was undeniably home. The moment I set foot there, a rush of childlike lightness would return - joy, playfulness, mischief. I’m constantly chasing that feeling, sifting through memory and sensation. But nothing has changed. Gali, Dimitrov Street No. 2, remains etched in my mind and in my body.

Your art speaks to post-war emotions - do you believe time truly softens pain, or does it simply allow it to exist in another form?

Time doesn’t ease pain and it certainly doesn’t justify it. It won’t soften the memory of 8,000 civilians - women, children, and men - tortured and killed by Russia. It won’t comfort the 300,000 people left without homes. When a person spends half their life simply trying to survive, time offers little solace. I don’t believe we should fixate on pain - it chips away at you, day by day. But what must never fade is the clarity of who the enemy is. I’m not saying we should live in hatred, or let it consume us. But we must not forget our anger. We must not let it dull. I believe that kind of focus - the refusal to forget - can become the ground for something healthy, something new. For now, though, we are still living inside the wound. And that pain continues to feed a quiet nihilism.

Your installations speak powerfully to themes of memory and trauma. Is there one piece that stands out to you as especially defining within your body of work?

Two stand out to me. "Citrus Trees Wrapped Against the Frost" is one of them - it was installed in Station Square for a month, surrounded by street vendors, nearly all of whom were displaced. I visited the installation every day, speaking with hundreds of people. It was an experience I’ll never forget.

The second is “River of Rust-Colored Tears,” which I dedicated to the sale of our home in Gali. The installation featured a rusted tin house structure, with paintings of our former home visible through its windows.

I believe there’s a connection between these two installations. The first, perhaps, captures the emotions of my very first visit after the war - what I saw, what I felt. The second feels like a farewell. A final letting go.

What would you say is the most challenging part of your creative process?

I wouldn’t say anything feels difficult when you know exactly what you’re doing and why. But emotionally, the hardest part is when I have to dig through my own memory for the sake of the work. It’s as if all my memories are stored away somewhere and when I access them, so much comes flooding back. Even the happy moments can bring sadness. Or memories of people who are no longer here.

What do you hope future generations will take away from your work? 

I’m not sure, I haven’t thought about it too much. But if my work can endure and still resonate with future generations, then perhaps I’ve done something meaningful. What I truly hope is that they’ll never have to experience war. Because even when you survive it, war takes your childhood, it strips away your lightness, at every stage of life. If anything, I’d want my work to be understood as a kind of painted documentary. Art born of war, but meant to belong to the past.