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When I want to describe the new series of works I’m making, terms like ‘human condition’ and ‘under construction’ come to mind. I want to portray the human condition with the use of architecture. Here I mean 'architecture' in its widest sense: in the shape, structure and movement of the human body, of buildings and landscape, of 'the built' environment, of the human body as it relates to that environment and of the city as a living organism with its orders and disorders.
In this series of works I portray the current situation in Georgia, my country of origin. By ‘human condition’ I mean the state of mind the country is going through. When asked about the situation in Georgia I always say the age of the country’s independence is the age of teenager, so that’s also how the country behaves – it rushes from one thing to another and quickly erases the leftovers from the previous system (though the feeling I get from this is of immaturity rather then the constant refreshment of the youth).
My work draws on the urban environment and the things that happen in it. In order to bring these happenings close to myself I process them through my own body by physically making work about it. With bringing these large architectural landscapes down to a smaller scale in my own sketchbook, the problems met there seem different. Struggling with these with pencil on paper the cities tendencies can be understood and accepted as something human, or better the human being can be seen behind it. By doing so I try to come to accept the city where I was born during a period when I find it growing uglier, and when I find myself opposed to what is happening in it. This way I become part of the city and its mistakes, architectural leftovers and trends that are layered on top of each other covering history with history - building towards a not so well defined future.
This work consists of the series of the black and white drawings and photographs, printed on the fabric. These images show human traces in an urban environment that has become thoroughly inhuman - large and rough manmade landscapes, half destroyed or not yet fully built buildings (a friend exclaimed –oh, yes, just like the society). I work on the details of these images and hand embroider some parts of it. For embroidery I choose the details that show the human touch within this no-man’s-land landscapes. This can be a small palm tree garden in front of the so-called ‘Khrushchev building’ (a very non-tropical setting), or a finished and furnished apartment as part of, or in the middle of, a concrete carcass. I choose these details in order to underline the imbalance or the hybrid situation within this reality.
What I’m concerned about is our inability to perceive things in their totality - a totality that includes space and time. It is this inability that lies behind our present condition of constant amnesia, in which we choose to overlook certain aspects of our collective past.
One can meet the same amnesia in everyday situations. Imagine a tall apartment building built in the most chic neighborhood, right next or into the park. To get the permission to build it, the commissioner had to bribe powerful officials so that they would change the plan of the park, and fit that location for erecting the building there. The building was built and – setting aside for one moment how it looked - it turned out that the elevator, which was going to be put in last, could not be installed as the building had started to bend slowly. Nobody wanted to live there any more – though in the beginning it promised to be one of the most prestigious new buildings. Later it turned out, that all of this was a myth, the building did not bend, some millionaires just wanted to buy several apartments in it – they created the false alarm so that the people who owned the apartments from the beginning would eagerly sell it for the cheap prize. Still it is another thing how much and which part of this story is entirely true, but one can for sure see human being – and kind of human being behind this situations.
When I encounter this kind of situations, the architecture mirroring the social order, the social order which is all about the speedy solutions of today only, I understand we do not really look far and set our goals in the future and I remember this one story that I have heard not long ago, that apparently the street children, who are generally strong and fit to survive…