2nd HAND LAND
All I do revolves around Space. Various projects - theatre plays, performances, movies, music videos, corporate events, theoretical studies, spatial interventions and installations, exhibition design, events organisation, etc., equipped me with a diverse knowledge and skills set. As an experiential designer and an entertainment industry professional, I connect fields of set design and (creative) production. Next endeavours include modern opera practices, spatial design for dance and movement, as well as light scenography and puppetry.
I am vice president of “Scenatoria” - Organisation that deals with officially protected, in reality abandoned and neglected built heritage through “staging” arts in those spaces and education about these fields - walks, publications, workshops, etc. This sparked curiosity about mixed forms - performance with video projections, VR and MR in site-specific productions.
My particular interest and experience is in production of large scale cultural events and site-specific spatial interventions in urban and heritage locations, and in the topics like presentation of space and space as context of presentation, mutual influence of people, space and stories, connecting past and present through cultural activities, historical locations / heritage activation and interpretation, improvement and interpretation of city through art in public / open spaces, and related;
Enjoy working manually and exploring materials, and finding new and unexpected uses for already existing objects. I work as an independent professional, cooperating with a multitude of collaborators on ongoing and development of future projects.
Some of the latest achievements include Tbilisi Architecture Biennial 2022 first award for text, BETA notable mentions (one for text 2020, another for photo essay 2022), talkings at Prague Quadrennial (2015, 2019 and 2023) with recognition for presented topics - “they always announce tendencies and topics for next edition”.
Project 2nd HAND LAND began several months ago, as I started to take photos of shop windows and explore their aesthetics. Large number of these shops are present around the city centre and on main streets, so it influences and somewhere completely defines street landscapes.
Large prints and hyper dimension price tags dominate as physical expressions of this typology, and poor lighting and interior design welcomes visitors beyond printed offerings “that can not be missed”!
As the fashion industry is, together with the building industry, the largest energy user and pollutant on the planet, it is worth paying attention to the lifespan and paths of clothes.
This project is also inspired by the ever growing sameness of (European) major cities, with every historic centre and pedestrian zone turning into a retail area, with the same window shops of the same brands.
In the same manner as the styles in architecture used to mark the epoch and place, the garment used to communicate elaborately - through materials, colours, shapes … about the season, origin, person that wears it, and so many more. Today the situation - both in built and the nearest body environment is completely changed - clothes and buildings around the world look the same. Another universality is excessive production and consumption, both having a tragic influence on the built and natural environment. Also, the cities, together with the online sphere, are the main places to show one’s taste, and identity. So, the City and the Fashion are parallel in a way of using resources, surrounding people and providing an image and impression.
Idea is to challenge roles and the responsibilities current generations of citizens and practitioners have as consumers, space and narrative creators, and to try to produce powerful and strong images that show important messages. In an era when images are everything, it makes sense to communicate via images, and to try to spread the word through images.