As a teen coming of age in Tbilisi, Georgia, during the mid-2000s, photographer George Nebieridze remembers the need to be loud, rebellious, and have a sense of belonging. The newly independent nation was reeling after the collapse of the Soviet Union, offering little to youth beyond liquor, music, bonfires, and abandoned buildings. While many of his peers fell victim to addiction, violence, and suicide, Nebieridze made a way out through school, but always carried the memory of his friends close to his heart.
In 2013, he moved to Berlin to pursue his MA, quickly falling in with the city’s flourishing techno clubs, before moving over to its noise-punk scene. Towards the end of the decade, Nebieridze met musician Karolina Bartczak, who formed the all-woman bands URIN and later BRAK. “I got instantly inspired by this band. It revived my desire from my youth to be involved with such music,” Nebieridze says. “I knew punk music has been present in Berlin since forever, but it always felt inaccessible for me prior to that. This, however, was happening right next to me, plus it was different from more conventional punk acts.”
In the beginning, Nebieridze came through as a friend to show support and sometimes work as a bouncer at the door. He snapped a few photos here and there, but it wasn’t until 2020 that he began to see the story he wanted to tell. With the publication of Powertool, Nebieridze crafts a portrait of Berlin’s contemporary feminist noise punk community with high voltage scenes of chaos, rage, intimacy, and solidarity.
