Art response to occupation

There is a corridor; the walls are decorated with the scenery from the border zone, and then by zigzag-hanging mirrors. Even the floor is a slick, cracked mirror. After that, there is another dark corridor, in which excerpts from news programs are overheard. It leads a visitor to a bright room, the walls of which are built of three-liter jars. Some jars have various portraits or texts on them, some others contain “mothballed” peanut pods and feathers. A sharp noise of breaking glass is played. And next is a room full of toilet bowls. Headphones are attached to every bowl; someone’s voices can be picked up. The room ends with a black curtain and an “Exit” sign. And that’s the entire display.

A TRAGICOMEDY OF WAR

White bowls is neither an irony, nor an attempt to shock the visitors – it is a symbol of the occupation. “The marauding Russian soldiers in Georgia looted even toilet bowls. We have seen those toilets on the tanks – they brought them home and then sold them on the Internet. A funny and tragic situation at the same time,” explains Nia Mgaloblishvili, curator of the “Crawling Border” project.

The headphones attached to the toilets play back letters, written by displaced children from the occupied territories of Georgia – the portraits of those children are placed on the jars. In the letters the children tell about their everyday lives in Tserovani refugee camp, about their longing for home. According to the artistic conception, this negative information is to be flushed away in the toilet.

A FORMULA FOR VICTIMS

The project was not changed for the display in Ukraine – it is the entirely same as it was at the Venice Biennale. “Probably, the exhibition can be presented in any country that has occupied territories. It’s a general formula,” reflects Rusudan Khizanishvili, one of project’s authors. “But the perception of the audiences in Venice and Kyiv differs. European audience is familiar with the problems we speak of only on TV. So, they were curious about it, they sympathized, but it is Ukrainian viewers who saw it with our eyes.” By the way, the “Crawling Border” project is supported by Georgian Ministry of Culture and Monument Protection – the idea of exhibiting the project in Ukraine was very interesting for the Georgian government.

This exhibition is primarily about people. About those whose lives were broken by military aggression and looting, whose stories are lost in the global news. This exhibition is about those who become acquainted with the terrible events in the news. The suffering – and with it, the hope – appear outside, and the viewer can no longer ignore them. Everyone will appreciate it differently, but the “Crawling Border” project is worth seeing. It is open in the IZOLYATSIA Foundation, Kyiv, through January 20.