Watching: Free Spaces

Overview

"Free Spaces" sketches a new and transformative image of four major cities in Eastern Europe. In te post-communist urban settings of Tbilisi (Georgia), Yerevan (Armenia), Chișinău (Moldova) and Kiev (Ukraine), Ina Ivanceanu follows artists and activists as they reclaim public spaces and assert their freedom of expression. Occupying a cinema, reviving an old Soviet circus, converting a grim metro passage into a glamorous arena, and repurposing a defunct factory building into a cultural agora. By seizing and creatively transforming public spaces characterized by an abondoned past, today's new generation explores democratic means and freedom while also confronting pervasive neoliberal structures in their respective societies.