311 | Objects from protest days, 2024–2025

This work is built on what I carried on the 311th day of protests in Georgia: a cigarette, a lighter, saline ampoules for the eyes, and a whistle. Small items, necessary when you stand on the street for hours facing tear gas, arrests, and violence.

For more than a year, Georgians have been protesting against the government’s attempt to silence civil society. The ruling Georgian Dream Party has adopted laws branding NGOs and independent media as “foreign agents,” echoing Russia’s repressive legislation. Opposition leaders are imprisoned or under constant investigation. The parliament has passed new restrictions criminalizing peaceful protest: anyone blocking a road, holding a sign, or “offending public order” can now face jail.

Special forces routinely attack demonstrators with rubber bullets, pepper spray, and batons. Journalists are targeted, activists are detained at night, and court decisions serve politics rather than justice. State-controlled television spreads daily propaganda calling critics “enemies of the state.”

Despite this, people still gather in the streets of Tbilisi, Batumi, and other cities, students, artists, and ordinary citizens who refuse to accept the return of authoritarian control. “311” is a quiet record of survival in that atmosphere, the minimal toolkit of someone who refuses to stay silent.