Knights  from  Pshav-Khevsureti

რაინდები ფშავ-ხევსურეთიდან

 

Andro Semeiko in collaboration with writer Ana Kordzaia-Samadashvili and fashion designer Manana Antelidze

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15 September – 14 October 2017

Literature Museum, Tbilisi, Georgia

The project explores life and work of Vazha-Pshavela in relation to pertinent socio-political issues around the world and particularly in Georgia. Andro Semeiko and Ana Kordzaia-Samadashvili have explored Vazha-Pshavela’s work and his personal objects from the Literature Museum collection, and have selected the poet’s handkerchief as the central object around which they create a metaphorical world through their own work. Andro Semeiko creates an installation inhabited by a ghostly presence of a medieval knight, a legendary crusader that lived in Khevsureti. He carries the poet’s handkerchief as a talisman and addresses Vazha-Pshavela’s ideas of humanism and progressive attitude towards nature. Ana Kordzaia-Samadashvili has, in the process of her research, discovered that the handkerchief was made especially for the poet and given to him as a gift by Georgian Women’s Society; she creates a fictional character that reflects women’s voice in the world. Manana Antelidze addresses various aspects of Vazha-Pshavela’s humanism including the female voice in his work, and designs an androgynous outfit, which combines audacity and gentleness. The exhibition is an installation consisting of painting, drawing, fashion, archival material, slide-show, text and audio work that create a multilayered story.

 

The project will be followed by an exhibition at the Asia House in London and with a new book of Vazha-Pshavela’s poems in English translations (2018-2019). The project is made possible with the kind support from Arts Council England, British Council, AG Alco and magazine Beaumonde.

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