Although contemporary art keeps working on a multitude of topics, gender issues are supposed to be critical ones. One might jump to the conclusion that since the 21st century we all live in the times of so-called 5th Industrial Revolution, many countries see the gender issue as a low priority. In fact, currently, the gender issues in a modified pattern are most soughtafter ones. The issue is not that these topics acquired rather retrogressive features: psychophysiological differences affecting the factors of domestic, social and cultural domination across the society, issues of fair distribution of social roles between men and women, sex-based perception of androcracy and matriarchy. Far from it, gender issues get more refined and sophisticated shape. The essence is the interaction of female and male principles assumed in their ontological and metaphysical manifestation. All issues noted above are critical ones, so are the serious problems. Studies on these and other gender- related issues through contemporary art are of high importance since, in a marked contrast to many other fields, art holds intense emotional, empathetic and affective components which were always distinctive features of female principle of existence. Any gender project seeks to develop, intensify and reveal various components of female principle of existence at different levels as its overall purpose, specifically, when it comes to any gender project implemented in the realm of the art. Teymur Daimi Artist, art theorist
In 2018 the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Azerbaijanian Democratic Republic was celebrated, and it is notable that the liberation of women in Azerbaijan when they acquired suffrage rights (becoming the first Muslim country, ahead of many European countries) as well has happened 100 years ago - in 1918! At the beginning of 20th century on the background of important historical and political events, the first women's clubs have arisen in Baku. Launched in 1920, the first Women's Club named after Ali Bayramov became the leading and representative center of social activities among the women, a birthplace of the liberation movement of women in Azerbaijan. The same years the first Azerbaijanian woman throwing off the veil was murdered for this symbolic act of the women liberation. Turned into a legend for future generations, her life served as an inspiration for “Sevil”, a play by famous Azerbaijanian writer, poet and playwright Jafar Jabbarli, as well as reflected in the monumental sculpture “Statue of a Liberated Woman” by Fuad Abdurahmanov in 1960 in a close neighborhood to the former Sovetskaya street district, where most of the women clubs were located. We are still faced with such questions as whether the women's movement, to some extent, was associated with the feminism of the first wave, literally, shook the social foundations of society? If the women's movement by definition cannot develop in the context of patriarchal traditions, then what was the root cause of its birth in Azerbaijani society? Was it the result of a clash of ideas and theories, or is its history a rather chronicle of human destinies, strong and integral personalities full of drama? Were our heroines bearers of ideas of feminism, and what is the degree of their influence on the development of public relations? Konul Rafiyeva Cultural manager
Agil Abdullayev HOT, FUNNY AND UNDERSTANDING 2019, Video installation, 2 channel, 4'20/4'20. Courtesy the Artist
This audio-visual installation brings together two monologues of the cool boy and cool girl, by describing lives of two personas and their inuences of each other. It creates video dialogue, in form of visual essays, the work expresses the desire to resist the constraints imposed on our lives by social forces and taboos as well by the materialism. Rendering his memories and ďŹ ctional scenarios, Agil Abdullayev delivers stories of both personas in his own way, to expose the silenced subjects in order to subvert the conventions of an identity display by comparing and questioning how the Caucuses countries perceive it visually, and how meaning and value are assigned through valuable relations such as her schoolmates and siblings and reviews their similarities of then and today.
Bahram Khalilov Series: Human Games. Title: Gender Deconstructed the World of the Freedom in Chains or The Calculated Dissection of Symbolism by the Human Worldly Principle of Devine and Rule 2018, Animation, 0'33. Courtesy the Artist We are united by the questions and divided by the answers. Our earthly world unites and links us under the universal laws of natural existence. Naturally, we have the sun, the moon and earth's environment with each other to survive and live by. However, all games which we try to play with the nature and each other divided and ruin it, as well as us. Then, standing on the bones of less fortunate, surrounded by the dissected environment and the stressfully disturbed mentality, we proudly proclaim a victory. The game is over¡ The game is dead¡ Long live the game! The dissected world of symbolism for the human gender deconstruction visually demonstrates how our human manifestations about the issue is unfulfilling for the entirety of the perception, as well as expression, accordingly. The shift of the naturally opposite bipolar reality influences all spectrum within its realms and equally crucial for all spiecies to observe and practice correctly for the survival purposes. The bipolar brain proudly up right standing and walking bipeds are not an exempt from the space-time nature of the universal laws, regardless of how far in our creative imaginary abilities we may advance in trying to distance ourselves from the rest of it or each other. Initially, we are born into the granted world of the Heaven a/r Hell equally coexisting within the realms of the reality. As we progress through space-time matter-void, our trajectile direction is defined by our own perceptions and actions. which are the matters of an individual choice. Thus, we live through our experiences in regard to our own direction depending on personal perceptions, aspirations and / or actions. Whatever we choose to believe in or manifest, we become, and the other way around. While some blame the environment or the other about the worldly difficulties justifying their own weaknesses, others live thankfully with it, try to respectfully modify it or let it be, acceptingly. Consequently, we instantly choose to live every moment of our lives in the heaven or hell here and now and voluntarily, in the process of bringing one or the other out, as a result. Besides thefact that our games are being, so called, utopian, we persist on imposing our illusions onto the world of reality. Thus, one essentially needs to learn to live in peace with oneself, to fairly play the game with others, for the mutually beneficial results of harmonious coexistence.
Chinara Mejidova & Leyli Salayeva MEN ONLY (WOMEN BE NOT ASHAMED) 2017, Video, 1'12. Courtesy the Artists
The collaborative work of a photographer Chinara Madjidova and contemporary poet Leyli Salayeva titled “Men only (women be not ashamed)” presents twelve women reciting a poem that consists of insulting expressions that women encounter by men in their real lives. The poem titled “Vulgar Poetry” is the reflection of contradictive mixture of harsh animalistic attitude of men-harassers with the poetic images created in their harassing words. The words are pronounced not by the real voices of women, but by the male. This voice personates the harasser whose voice remains in the head of women. In 21st century women are still being harassed by the strangers. The problem with the harassment remains unsolved, because women blame victims of the harassment for provoking men to do so. There is still no firm attitude in the society that this is unacceptable for men to invade personal space of a woman. And the words sometimes may have greater impact than the physical contact. Commissioned by YARAT Contemporary Art Space, Baku
Chinara Mejidova VOICE 2018, Video, 1'07. Courtesy the Artist
On Caucasus the women still considered as defenseless, unprotected and weak sex. With the old stereotypes manhusband is the head of family and he is stronger and more powerfull. With hard economic situation in regions the men move to the other countries to gain money, but then never come back or support them. So the family raising lays to the women “weak “shoulders. If we look around we can notice that one of the hardest works mostly done by women. The women who works at Bazar could not be in list of weak sex. She carry heavy goods, work outside of house mostly in open area and took this hard work to raise a family. This type of works are totally opposite to Caucasus mentality for women but there are a lot women who work on this field. The video shows the problem of women who still married but had to work on Bazar to raise the family, because her husband left the country to gain money but never came back. Commissioned by YARAT Contemporary Art Space, Baku
Leyli Gafarova & Leyli Salayeva WITHIN ME 2018, Video, documentation of the performance, Courtesy the Artists
The performance “Ichine” developed as a cooperation work by Leyli Gafarova and Leyli Salayeva challenges the concept of female modesty through traditional dance. From childhood women have been told to be modest, which means not to express opinion, aggression or any other feelings instead sacrifice the own interests for others, particularly men. On the other hand dancing has always been accepted through which were able to express their emotions and even be flirty. However, brides and their own weddings are expected to show their decency by keeping their faces serious while dancing. Selected rubai's of azeri female poet Mahsati Ganjavi will be performed by a group of women in a form of a ritual. The ritual uses symbols of Azerbaijani dance elements in a conceptualized formats and is repetitive. Commissioned by YARAT Contemporary Art Space, Baku
Nazrin Mammadova LUCID DREAM 2015, Video, 2 channel, 10'08/10.8. Courtesy the Artist Lucid dream is a project driven by the theme and ideas present in 'Gulf Futurism' - a term that describes an existing phenomena that is observed in the architecture, urban planning, art and aesthetics of popular culture in the post-oil countries and Persian Gulf in particular.The term 'Gulf Futurism'explores the dynamics of social dislocation amid rapid modernisation. At the same time, it tries to identify the significance of advances in personal technology in the clash between tradition and modernity, pointing at cross-cultural and beset notions of transience. This project is an attempt to draw attention to themes present in Gulf Futurism which include: isolation of individuals via technology; wealth and reactionary Islam; corrosive elements of consumerism on the soul and industry on Earth; replacement of history with glorified heritage fantasy in the collective memory; and the erasure of existing physical surrounding. Don't you think dreams and the internet are similar? They are both areas where the repressed conscious mind vents. Lucid Dream is a two channel video projection. Channel 1 is a staged performance where artist performs the Islamic prayer (Salah/Namaaz) as physical act. Channel 2 is a collaged animation with so-called "post-internet art" aesthetics - computer generated virtual reality, which is inspired by cultural theorist Slavoj Zizek's statement: "Traces of Gnosticism are clearly discernible even in today's cyberspace ideology. The cyberspace dreams of the Self, liberated from the attachment to its natural body by turning itself into a virtual entity floating from one to another contingent and temporary embodiment, is the scientific- technological realisation of the Gnostic dream of the Self getting rid of the decay and inertia of material reality. Commissioned by YARAT Contemporary Art Space, Baku
Nazrin Mammadova IN CONVERSATION WITH MOUNTAINS 2018, Video, documentation of a live performance, 21'. Courtesy the Artist "IN CONVERSATION WITH MOUNTAINS" is a sound design performance piece based on field recordings collected in the natural landscapes of the Xhizi region's mountains in Azerbaijan, executed and performed by contemporary visual & sound artist Nazrin Mammadova. Inspired by Michelangelo Pistoletto's concept of the Third Paradise, as demonstrated through its symbol, an infinite sigh with a third loop is the Third Space. It is a space in the middle, in-between, interstitial, in which the idea of the conflictual and destructive relationship between nature and technology vanishes, enabling both to become part of society. As Pistoletto says, the driver for this mutation is people's sense of personal responsibility and collaboration, as well as the participatory form of knowledge. The concept of Third Paradise has inspired this proposal and provides a foundation towards broader research and experimental practice revolving about the notion of sound. 'In conversation with mountains' as if returning to the origins of sound art with its ambivalence audible and inexpressible, sounding and conceivable, yet carries a sonic dialogue between nature, human and technology creating three circles of effective if you like participation as an attempt to become united sharing a singular input and output language, language of sound and vibration. Concept could possibly reveal a range of questions, a revision of the boundaries between the artificial and natural world - and at the same time, of course, between sound and visual. An experimental approach to the sonic production may use tools that could try to portray/imitate the sound of nature maximally expanding its scale and palette of timbres or on the contrary synthetic sound which is seemingly inherent to the environment could be introduced to it. Commissioned by YARAT Contemporary Art Space, Baku
Sabina Shikhlinskaya AHEAD OF DREAMS 2019, Video, 2 channel, 3'38/0'58. Courtesy the Artist Some years ago, was implemented a project “Roles of Women in Azerbaijan”, which could serve as a door to a better understanding of the women struggling to find the place in a society in transition. The project general idea was to reflect the power and dignity of women and the challenges they face in the daily life. To understand what means for the women to deal with different roles in society, as: Mother, Wife, Governor, to reflect the personal aspirations, hopes and dreams from one side and inner resources to cope with various responsibilities. Selected women politicians from municipalities of different Absheron regions and women from Baku leading NGOs were chosen to take part in workshops and later travel to Europe to meet there with women leaders and to exchange the life and work knowledge and experiences. Sometime after the successful completion of the project and the trip of women leaders to Europe, the project organizers accidentally learned that one of the participants was not a representative of the municipality in her village and had never worked in a public political position. This was her unfulfilled dream, and as a talented actress, she just played the role of a woman - a political leader. The case of this deception was dictated by the situation in the village that has developed over the centuries. In today's reality, women from regions living in sparsely populated settlements have very few opportunities to be equal with men in their social position. The rule established by society that a leadership is only for men cannot always be overcome in reality. But in the imagination, there are no rules and restrictions and there is a place for a dream that can be more real than reality itself. Commission by Goethe-Zentrum Baku for ‘A Doll’s House’ exhibition April 13-May 18, Kapellhaus, Baku, Azerbaijan. Curators Alfons Hug and Asli Samadova
Sitara Ibrahimova REFLECTOR 2016, Video, 2 channel, 2'05/2'05. Courtesy the Artist
Sitara Ibrahimova's series of life-size projections depict the artist performing repetitive actions that remind of sacrilegious rituals. These GIF-like videos highlight prevailing issues of the socio-cultural reality of Azerbaijan. In the horizontally projected, “Picnic”, the artist brushes sand off of a picnic blanket spread on a landfill. The work comments on the acceleration of consumerist values and fetishistic fixation on private ownership after the demise of socialism. It starkly highlights a lack of social comradeship and cooperation, and indifference towards wider surroundings. Cleansing of the body by scraping off oil (petroleum). The manifestation of the ritual carries a sacral meaning - the way oil's sacral role is embedded in our collective unconscious. Aside from its use as a non-renewable natural resource, a unique grade of Naftalan oil is used in therapeutic and healing purposes. Commissioned by YARAT Contemporary Art Space, Baku
Sitara Ibrahimova A WOMAN'S JOURNEY 2018, Video, 3'41. Courtesy the Artist On May 28, 2018, amongst a number of many other accomplishments, Azerbaijan celebrated 100 years of universal suffrage, making Azerbaijan one of the first countries, and the very first Muslim nation, in the world to grant women equal political rights with men. This work is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the independence of the Azerbaijan Republic and its humanistic vision. Today, millions of girls across the globe still do not have access to learning. Illiteracy prevents hundreds of millions of women from fully participating in their respective societies. Female education and empowerment remains a top priority for my work as an artist. In my work, I portray the real stories of both ordinary and not so ordinary women in light of the problems and issues they are facing in their everyday lives in every corner of the world. My main goal is to identify the circumstances in which women are culturally and socially oppressed and how, in a long run, it has disastrous results for both sexes. In Azerbaijan, women are born into a society that still facessocial inequalities ranging from gender-specific abortions, mistreatment from their spouses, sexual harassment, early marriage, and in some cases, being denied an education by their families. Slideshow was produced in the frame of Multimedia Lab Production Grant Program for South Caucasus Female Photographers June-November 2018. The project is financed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation
Teymur Daimi THREE 2018, Video, 5'12. Courtesy the Artist
The film is presenting film-essay on the classical theme “Three Graces” which were devoted numerous creations of artwork all the way from antique epoch till nowadays. This theme is connected to manifestation of Ideal - ideal proportions, ideal composition, ideal perception of the world in whole. Being ideal in itself, that theme cannot be perfect because the Ideal is only one extreme side of graduated scale of aesthetic absolute. In order to achieve the integrity, this extreme side, that is Ideal, should close up with the opposite extreme side on the scale- with the realities of day to day existence. The film is showing this alchemical process of “idealization of everyday life” ( and vice verse)-integration of two sources and appearance of other, “third meaning”.
Vusal Rahim NURCAN 2018, Video, documentation of the performance, 19'50. Courtesy the Artist
Vusal Rahim performed the project of a black wedding that aims to raise attention to the problematic issue of child marriages. The title “NURCAN” relates to the girl's name that plays the role of the artist's bride. She is the daughter of the activist Aynur Cavid, who fights against forced marriages of minors. Her poetry, written on the walls, will form the background of the performance scenery. The project consists of three parts, in which the announcement and preparation of the wedding forms the first, the wedding performance the second and post-wedding process the third part. The performance reflects on different local traditions of the wedding ceremony such as the arrival of the groom to the bride's house, national dance, greeting ceremonies, different rituals held by the relatives. The implementation of this project supports social work to increase sensitivity to the topic of early marriages, explaining the importance of this problem to the society as well as establishing a virtual discussion platform. Despite it is against the law forcing someone under the age of 18 into marriage, an average of 3,500 babies are born each year to girls aged 15-17 in Azerbaijan. Causes of early marriages are diverse and include poverty, the fear of remaining unmarried, social pressures and costumes, insecurity or financial advantages. Women married in their teens struggle with an increase of birth complications, social isolation, limited possibilities of education and suffer more likely from domestic violence and marital rape. Commissioned by YARAT Contemporary Art Space, Baku