What is Queer, a new word in the Georgian lexicon? Often it is seen as a colloquial name or synonym for LGBT + community, often we find it used as synonymous with gay in our parts. These are narrow definitions, as Queerness is more than a just collective name. It is a struggle, an aggressive opposition to stability, and a "normality" built on traditional ideas.
What does Queerness mean to us? The waving the pride flag once a year? Integration into the socio-economic system that seeks to destroy us? The enrollment into capitalist, heteronormative, and militarist institutions with rainbow flags? Is this the limit of our desires and dreams? In a space where the representation politics seeks to dominate the issue by imitating the West and their love for Rainbow capitalism, only offering us the illusion of equality, so understanding all of this becomes even more significant.
Representation and visibility are limited combat weapons, resulting only with assimilation. Our goal is not to be a supplement to cisheteronormativity, to become acceptable to the same systems, and to become part of the oppressors instead of eliminating oppression.
While the discussions of visibility take a lot of our time and resources, conditions of the most vulnerable and oppressed among us; Transgender people, sex workers, ethnic minorities, and others, are deteriorating. We don't need representation politics that does not focus on systemic oppression and is limited to only affirming our humanity to a system for which we are outside acceptability, the system which will never accept us and won't let society accept us. We do not need visibility if it doesn't bring access to hormone therapy for transgender people if it doesn't give housing and security for young, queer people cast away by their families. We do not need these forms of acceptance that only give us superficial equality and do not change the oppressive system. The right to marriage cannot be a priority when the most vulnerable among us are starving and have no access to medical care. Queerness - is not a colorful version of the cis-hetero patriarchal family with its enforced monogamy, and we should not allow it to become that.
Instead of trying to demand a small space from the society in which we will be forced to contort ourselves to meet their demands and sacrifice those of us most unacceptable to them - we must abandon this struggle for this illusory equality. Because the world still won't accept us, and this in return means that the world itself is unacceptable, it must be destroyed in its foundation and rebuilt from scratch.
David Apakidze - Tkashmapha
Once upon a time,
There was Tkashmapha, the dryad of the forest.
And every hunter longed for her.
Divine veracity personified,
Once a forest dweller,
Now holed up in a cellar,
Animals above and beyond.
The bestower of curses,
Feared and lusted after,
The petrifier of men, who
Dare betray the sacred union of the flesh.
Now stiff & feeble, covered in subterranean moss,
Debasing herself in chase of the primal calling.
Spirit reduced to flesh, burdened with survival,
By the hour, specials for an extra fee.
Once upon a time,
There was Ochikochi, the satyr,
Coated in fur, buck-chested,
Goat-legged guardian of all beasts.
The wrath of hunters,
The avenger of wild things,
The stalker and pursuer of Tkashmapha.
Now, his violence has turned to means,
A regular, callin on Tkashmapa,
Each time donning a different face.
Photo by Mariko chanturia, David Apakidze, Text: Lasha Kabanashvili, Models: Lile, Giga
Paollander - Poertry
I write my blogs in two almost native languages. They have a lead female character that tells the story of her internal battle through prose as well as poems. The blog serves as a platform for me to emphasize how women as a marginalized group in society live in fear and oppression, how they fight for equality, safety, freedom and acceptance.
The characters in my art are faces of women, their emotions, fear and sorrow, that are often unexpressed in daily life. The paintings combine body language, character portraits and abstract pieces. The source of my inspiration is female world and my perception of female identity. I see the women I paint as a mirror reflection from the canvas, each telling a different story. They represent paused moments from everyday life, bringing to life their internal world to life through body movements and facial expressions.
Art has always been a means of communication for me. Without it I am unable to fully express myself. Verbally I cannot communicate what I have to say as efficiently and fully as with colors on a plain canvas, or through words on a blank paper. The silent, non-vocal and colorful world resonates more with my sensations and personality.
Moon
With a starless obscure sky as my umbrella
I am feeling lost, as usual.
The Moon stares at me
Standing in stoic solitude
No hesitation or doubt,
Standing in the air.
The clouds might hover, might move around
In restless ambiguity
Confusion.
Confusion was never a trait innate
For the Moon.
The Moon is certain. She knows no worry.
No insecurities.
Botherless she stares at you with her wholesomeness
With her entirety
Bold entirety that makes you feel so partial
So half a life
A spec.
A fluctuating miniature spec
Knowing you you can never lose your identity
As you have never had it in the first place
She does. The Moon. And it is no subject to loss.
Is unobtainable by other.
Can not be embodied by frightened else.
Even when she seems half, she is whole.
She is full. On her own, but filled
With all there is, that ever was, that ever will be.
Observing us in a timeless, ferocious manner
That seems so cruel, yet incredible beautiful. Everlasting.
As she is. as she always will be.
Oh, envy. Unmeasurable envy I feel towards her.
Feeling worthless. All I have is a worthless wander.
Pointless search for mercy.
So unfortunate, being designed to hunt for that which is unhunted
For why can we solely be spectators of what is,
Not much we can alter
Not a thing we can leave here.
Mere desperation this causes
Leaves us feeling deplete, lack
But hopeful at the same time
That one day i will be like her, the moon
And not be so fucking scared of what I am
Salome Zhvania - Untitled
In the patriarchal and capitalist society where emotions are assumed feminine and thus, a bad thing that needs to be suppressed, neglected, or deleted when they are something to be ashamed of, and everything needs to be rationalized and not felt, expressing emotions can become an act of rebellion.
I try to express emotions that do not fit the heteronormativity and go beyond the limits through sexuality, love, self-perception, and connection with our own bodies. I want to show how emotions flow in the labyrinth of heart and mind, scratching the surface from the inside. I want the viewer to have the emotion of melancholic harmony, a feeling where grief, awkwardness, and hope strangely intertwine with each other.
Roman / Ramona Valynkin - Partners in crime
As an Immigrant photographer, who came to Tbilisi from Saint-Petersburg, I’m crafting my personal interpretation on the complicacy of relationships between the Visitor and the Local in the context of the evolving queer culture in post-Soviet Georgia. This is my witty, complex and sophisticated visual reflection around the idea that no matter what our nationality is, We are all ‘PARTNERS in CRIME’.
