Goodbye letter to a homeland – Tuta C

Goodbye letter to a homeland – Tuta C

The void and emptiness caused by losing one’s homeland, resembles the death of a loved one or their departure from you, forever. It is like the destruction of familiar walls and the ground being abruptly pulled from under your feet.

THE EXHIBITION by queer artist Andro Dadiani, which closed just days before the enforcement of the anti-LGBTQ law in Georgia, felt like a ritualistic mourning, the artist’s farewell to their homeland.

                                        Ph. by Justina Mielnikiewicz


The authoritarian regime in Georgia marked the queer body and queer expression as a red line, banning and subjecting queer protest and queer art to legal restrictions.

The works in the artist’s Untitled exhibition, presented at the Window Project gallery, in Tbilisi, capital of Georgia, seemed to mirror the radical shift in the environment. Thoughts on the impossibility of queer art within a totalitarian system and the closure of spaces for it loomed as a backdrop to the audience’s interaction with the artist’s works.

Where does queer art go when it is outlawed? What becomes of the queer artist when both their body and their creativity are declared illegal?

Andro Dadiani is a poet, performer, artist. Their art has many mediums, but one language, that speaks about the struggles of queer bodies and minds.

                          Tuta C. – Ph. by Justina Mielnikiewicz

Most of Andro Dadiani’s works are made from recycled materials. Discarded and damaged objects they collect from the streets, acquire new meanings.

In the untitled exhibition, both the artist’s old and new works are presented. The main medium is installation, but the materials are unique and different from each other. Here, you will see an exclamation mark made of rusted iron, embroidered images on textiles, photographs as parts of installations, and objects made of plaster and aluminum cans.

The central piece of the exhibition is the artist’s new piece, a large-scale installation “God, Give Me the Strength”. Cross-shaped work is made of aluminum energy drink cans, surrounded by weights of varying sizes. The Ironic gaze of the installation speaks about the survival strategies shaped by contemporary society, such as capitalist tools for empowerment like energy drinks and gyms. The installation is accompanied by a musical piece by a Georgian composer Zaqaria Paliashvili, Daisi—an elegy to endings.

Second floor of the exhibition presented the old works of the artist. One of them is the carved and damaged plaster installation, filled with abandoned objects. The installation was created with the sadness of parting from a lover. Today, the belongings left behind by a former lover reflect the artist’s thoughts on the inevitability of migration.

A photograph taken in an old Tbilisi courtyard, where the artist’s body narrates the sorrow of queer existence, seems to gaze at its own trace from the wall. In the photo, Andro’s face is hidden behind a mask made of snails, while the shoes they wear in the image lie on the gallery floor, filled with soil, staring at their concealed face.

Masking the face and masking the body, for Andro has become a defiant form of expression, a means of navigating a reality where visibility can mean annihilation. Yet now, even the mask can no longer conceal the terror of living under a totalitarian regime that excludes, silences, and punishes the queer body.

In a world where queer existence is legislated into erasure, Andro’s concealed face speaks louder than
words—a haunting symbol of resilience.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *