Soon after the ground invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, photographer Ivan Anisimov left Russia. He spent the next two years in Tbilisi, Georgia — suspended between past and present, homeland and exile. There, he confronted the quiet weight of displacement: the sense of being foreign, of living under the gaze of others shaped by history and politics. Like many migrants, he navigated not only a new city but also the invisible boundaries of perception and belonging, where every encounter carried echoes of conflict and the search for place.

As Ivan walked the streets of Tbilisi, he kept his gaze low. Gradually, his attention shifted to the men around him — to the way their slightly too long pants draped over their shoes. This small, ordinary detail tethered these passing strangers to the memory of his father.

In Pants on Top of Shoes, Tbilisi becomes both landscape and state of mind. Through fleeting photographs of passersby’s feet, Ivan captures a portrait of modern alienation — people adrift in the flow of life, half-asleep, half-aware. The work reflects not only on migration but on wandering itself: the quiet hypnosis of a life in motion, where every step forward circles back to the question of who we become after leaving everything behind.