Artist: Shotiko Aptsiauri
Exhibition title: Waterless Swimming
Venue: Window Project, Tbilisi, Georgia
Date: May 15 – June 30, 2021
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Window Project, Tbilisi
What happens to a person when they have to function in an environment where everything around them loses its original look and content? How do they adapt to the changing environment of lockdowns, quarantine and other changes?
After the change of the economic system in the city of Kutaisi in Georgia, the only pool in this city was left without water, yet swimming lessons were still held in a Soviet-era pool. In these lessons, students mimed their swimming exercises. You would hear the phrase “imagine you are in the water” from the coach. Students tried their best, to swim without water on certain days of the week.
Waterless swimming is a work based on the Observation of dysfunctional pools after the collapse of the Soviet Union, which revives the nostalgic, poetic impulses of swimming without water in allegoric self-ironic and dramatic ways.
Shotiko Aptsiauri’s works are influenced by social, psychological and historical artifacts. Artists combine materials like gypsum with pigments and earth ,wood, stones and watercolor. Aptsiauri created sculptural works which are presented in classical frames
