Kataula

Kataula is a material-based project that documents the ongoing destruction of Kataula Mountain in Georgia’s Kavtiskhevi village, where industrial limestone extraction continues under the operation of a major cement producer – Heidelberg Materials. The mountain is not only a site of extraction but also a burial ground—home to the artist’s great-grandmother and family, as well as a home to diverse plant and animal life that still inhabit its slopes. Using cement and quarry waste sourced directly from the site, Mikadze creates photographic imprints of those who are buried beneath or still inhabit the mountain. 

These images—transferred onto cement tiles—form a archive of presences threatened by disappearance. The project also incorporates ceramic glazes made from residual quarry material, transforming industrial byproducts into markers of what extraction leaves behind. Kataula questions the logic of depletion inscribed in Georgian mining law and challenges the narratives of sustainability used by corporations to justify the irreversible damage done to land, memory, and life.

(This prediploma project received the S+T+ARTS Prize Honorary mention 2025, Ars Electronica)