The art of sitting still: How the street chairs of Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital, taught a Russian émigré to slow down

Russian émigré Alexander Zakharenkov began photographing the chairs, armchairs and couches he found on Tbilisi’s streets after moving there in 2022. The project grew into a video essay and a website, using everyday street furniture to show how people occupy public space and how the city’s slower pace changed his outlook.

Zakharenkov says he often found that 20 frames on a 36-exposure film roll showed seats. He put a chair outside his home to observe what happened when its owner was absent; it was stolen almost immediately, so he bought another. With Georgian family roots but raised in Moscow, he also hoped the project would help him feel at home in Tbilisi, where he lived for two years before moving to Serbia.