SAFEZONE group exhibition:
Lali Binyatova, Nadir Eminov, Islam Hasanalizade, Katya Igoshina, Parviz Kazimli, Leylakhanim Ganbarli, Ilkin Guliyev, Maxim Tatarintsev
The inspiration for the exhibition comes from the concept elaborated by Michel Foucault in his lecture Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias (1967). Heterotopia (hetero – other, topos – places) is described as a particular contradictory and transforming space inside the space that is considered other. According to Michel Foucault, utopias are sites that fundamentally have no actual location and represent society in its ideal form. However, some places are contrary to utopias: probably in every culture, in every civilization, real places—places that do exist and that are formed in the very founding of society—which are something like counter-sites, a kind of effectively enacted utopia.
One of its categories is heterotopia of crisis which is about reserved spaces for members of a society who may be in a state of crisis. The exhibition juxtaposes the term with the gallery space since art has universally been serving as a place of escape from crisis.
In the shared uncertainty and rising threat to safety, the notions of shelter and home have acquired ephemeral characteristics: people lose the roof over their heads in the blink of an eye. SAFEZONE explores ambivalent notions of home and shelter, referring to a place between reality and a parallel utopia. The artists interpret in different contexts, such as memory, displacement, purification, virtuality, and time, offering various forms of refuge.
WORKS LIST
Lali Binyatova
Bratsk, 2022
Photo series. Variable dimensions
Video 05:00 min.
Courtesy of the artist
Bratsk, a photographic project by Lali Binyatova is the result of thoughts induced by displacement. The author suddenly leaves her hometown involuntarily and is faced with living in an urban environment. At this time, memory becomes her refuge and a way to cope with the new situation. There are two emotional stages represented in the exhibit: the melancholy of the past and the bittersweet feeling of hope that follows.
Leylakhanim Ganbarli
Confrontation, 2018
Video installation, 05:11 min
Courtesy of the artist
A female artist who is afraid of death expresses this fear subconsciously in her self-portraits while somehow attempting to escape from it. One day, while drawing her own picture in front of the mirror, she noticed that the depicted face was not her own and that eyes from the picture were looking at her, so she turned away. At this very moment, the artist enters an imaginative realm...
Nadir Eminov
Okay boomer, 2022
TV, granite
50 x 50 x 50 cm
Commissioned by YARAT
Ilkin Guliyev
Untitled, 2021
Digital c-print on photo paper
60x80 cm
Courtesy of the artist
Ilkin Guliyev's photo was taken in Essen during the strict lockdown. The image portrays everyday household items in the still life genre. For the author, alienation, brought on by the threat of a pandemic and new norms, was accompanied with a sense of unbelonging as well.
Though locked in his own house, the artist cannot feel at home. He stays around things finding a new breath in this silence, and begins to see the most ordinary things differently...
Parviz Kazimli
Our Days Gone by, 2022
Installation, mixed techniques
Site specific dimensions
Commissioned by YARAT
In Our Days Gone by, Parviz Kazimli experimented with a new technique; his work often reveals an understanding of the past and its impact on the present. By moving from the point of the artist examines the increasing pressure of life and its rapid change. There is a looming writing on the wall that completely destroys time and space, creating an artificial space in a parallel time.
Maxim Tatarintsev
Fulcrum, 2022
2 channel video, archive footage
15:04
Courtesy of the artist
The main motive of the work “Fulcrum” is the video archive of the artist's family, which settled in Baku aduring the Second World War. Several members of the artist's family were forced to displacement as a result of wars and geopolitical crises. As of now, Maxim has also settled in Baku, experiencing once more the bitter traditions of his family.
The archival video from the 1960s illustrates the family events and the familiar places of Baku. The artist reconstructs the collective memory after 60 years by filming areas that his relatives once visited, creating a link with the past.
Katya Igoshina
(There is) Not enough space in memory, 2022
Series, watercolor on paper, iodine
51 pieces, each size 21 x 29,7 cm
Commissioned by YARAT
(There is) Not enough space in memory is the artist's reflection to what is happening. When war broke out suddenly, the artist left her native country and people in search of safety and fled to a foreign land. Through memory, she attempts to establish a connection with her family and analyses her personal traumatic experience on a collective level. While preparing the work, she discovers unexpected connections after becoming deeply familiar with her subconscious. While she has no trouble recalling native faces, sometimes she seems to be caught in a bind, and it seems to her that she can't remember images that are hidden from him by his memory.
Although it is easy to remember familiar faces, sometimes memory seems to catch in a trap and the images are easily hidden from her. The material used by the artist is not accidental either: experimenting with iodine she metaphorically transfers the disinfecting and healing properties to the process.
Islam Hasanli
Soft Trace, 2022
Sponge, mixed techniques
Site-specific sculpture
Commissioned by YARAT
In an attempt to distort the concept of shelter, the artist creates the large-scale installation with the ironic and grotesque approach. The artist created the snail shell in an unrealistic form as an industrial object, leaving no entrance to it. The artist juxtaposes nature and artificiality and emphasizes the contradiction: although the softness of the work gives a sense of comfort, it will collapse at any moment.
ABOUT ARTISTS:
Lali Binyatova (b. 1999, Bratsk, Russia) is a photographer who frequently uses personal stories, everyday observations and social research in her projects to analyze the human being as the center of her works. She completed cinematography, directing and scriptwriting courses at the “Interact Film Lab” project of the “Azerbaijanfilm” Film Studio organized by the Ministry of Culture of Azerbaijan. She participated in a number of local and foreign exhibitions: Bursa Photo Festival (Turkey, 2021), Kolga Photo Festival (Tbilisi, Georgia, 2022), Photography residency program (Poti, Georgia, 2022), “Women in Photography”, (Baku , 2022), “Palette of Perspectives” (Tbilisi, Georgia, 2022), “Black Diary”, solo exhibition (Salaam Cinema, Baku, 2021), “Monochrome: Yellow to Green” (Baku Photography House, 2021), “People, their houses and environment” photo presentation (Baku House of Photography, 2021). Lali Binyatova is a member of “F3.7” Union of Photographers.
Nadir Eminov (b. 1990, Sumgayit) graduated from the Azerbaijan State Art Academy with a master’s degree in Sculpture in 2017. He works with installations and sculpture. His works cover the topics of human and the universe, human thinking and fantasies, with a wide range of subjects. The artist is a participant in many exhibitions and projects: “Comfortably Numb” exhibition (ARTIM. Project Space, 2016), ARTIM exhibition (YARAT's alternative space, 2014), International exhibition “From Trash to Art” (Baku, 2014).
Islam Hasanelizade (b. 1988, Baku) graduated from Azerbaijan Academy of Arts, from the faculty of “Sculpture” in 2011. The main themes of his practise are the following: a human being , their inner world, physical and spiritual conflict, aesthetics of human sexuality, psychological portrait of a human struggling with their passions, interaction with the surrounding reality. The artist participated in various sculpture symposiums and group exhibitions such as: symposium dedicated to the 880th anniversary of Nizami Ganjavi (Eco-Park Zira, 2021), “Treasure of Literature” (Heydar Aliyev Center, 2018), “Far Horizons” (ARTIM, Baku, 2017) , “From Waste to Art” International Exhibition (Baku, 2016), etc.
Katya Igoshina (b. 1991, Moscow) graduated from the “Easel Graphics” faculty of the Moscow State Academy of Industrial and Applied Arts named after S. Stroganov in 2014. In 2017-2018, she studied at ICA. Personal traumas and collective happenings in which people are involuntary participants form the basis of her projects. In such cases, events are perceived as if from outside, and the feeling of impossibility to control them always accompanies us. She is a participant in a number of group exhibitions and projects, including: Russian Culture Forum “SlovoNovo” (Budva, Montenegro, 2021); “Grafiya” exhibition, Cultural Innovation Center (Kaluga, Russia, 2021); MOST contemporary art festival (“Elmat” Art Space, Kaluga, Russia, 2020), “A portret povesim zdes” online exhibition (“Zdes gallery”, Moscow, Russia, 2020), “Great Communal” project (Night of the Arts. State Museum-Reserve Tsaritsyno, Moscow, Russia, 2019). Katya Igoshina's works are kept in private collections in Russia, France and Spain. She is a member of the Union of Russian Artists.
Parviz Kazimli (b. 2000, Baku) studied at the interior design in the Azerbaijan State Academy of Fine Arts in 2017-2021. In 2018, Parviz discovered his interest in collage and started a new practise, inspired by Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Vadim Voinov, Marcel Dushamp and Hanna Hox. In 2020, Parviz Kazimli founded the “Modern Trinity” creative unity together with 2 artist friends, and currently works there as the main artist. The main slogan of “Modern Trinity” is: “Art is always relevant.” Emphasizing this philosophy in his work, the artist rejects the canons of academicism and turns to the actual topics of contemporary art. “Modern Trinity” had travelling exhibitions in Ismayilli and Gabala cities in 2021.
Leylakhanim Ganbarli (b.1992, Baku) After getting her bachelor’s degree in filmmaking at the Azerbaijan State University of Culture and Arts, she pursued a Master of Arts degree in cinema and television in Anadolu University in Turkey.
While she was a student, Leyla held a variety of roles in several short film projects including art director, director, writer and actress. Currently Leyla works as a freelance filmmaker and also makes experimental paintings and collages. Leylakhanim Ganbarli is the author of several short films: A Butcher’s Daughter (2021), No time to retire (2021), Tunes of Sanatorium (2022), Big Red House (2022). Her films were screened and awarded at the Film Market of 52nd Visions Du Reel, 5th DokuBaku International Documentary, 9th Cinedoc Tbilisi Film Festival and other international and local film festivals.
Ilkin Guliyev (b. 1994, Barda) graduated from the “Journalism” faculty of Baku State University with a bachelor's degree. During 2017-2022 he studied photography at the Folkwang Universitat der Künste in Germany. Currently, he is studying for a Master of Arts in Photography Studies and Practice. In his artistic practice, he prefers the artistic-documentary genre, portrait, still life and restaged photography. He participated in group exhibitions such as “Nähe, Na” (Gallery 52, Essen, Germany, 2022); “Once in a blue Moon” (Gallery 52, Essen, Germany, 2021).
Maxim Tatarintsev (b. 1991, Ukraine) is an artist, works in genres of video, installation, public-art and painting. The main plot to his work is the social environment, as the main source of personality development. He graduated from the “Environmental Design” faculty in Moscow State Academy of Industrial and Applied Arts named after S. Stroganov in 2014. Later on he completed his education in the Higher Academic School of Graphic Design. In 2018, he graduated from ICA. The artist participated in numerous exhibitions and projects: “Things” (“ART4” Museum, Moscow, Russia, 2022), “By my side” solo exhibition (“DORDOR” gallery, New York, 2021), Fisura International Experimental Film and Video Festival ( Mexico, 2021), “Timekeeping” (“PRO ART’S” gallery, Kaluga, Russia, 2020), “COSMOSCOW” Art Fair (Moscow, 2020), “Great Communal” project (Night of the Arts. State Museum-Reserve Tsaritsyno, Moscow, Russia, 2019), etc. His works have been awarded a number of prizes.