“Disorientation of collective visions”
Zura Arabidze’s project offers visitors a field of existential philosophy, where he deals with the conditions of human existence: individual perception of the world, freedom and possibility of choice. Individual perception of the world is a complex and controversial process with its conflicts and subjectivity, and the contradiction is always accompanied by new energy, which can turn into an artistic form.
Changes in personal space, individual experience, and psychological balance are inevitable when confronted with the societal vision, “common sense”, or established rules. The individual worldview is formed as a result of complex processes and is never unshakable fixture in life - it always undergoes stress with different manifestations of the chaos existing outside, instability.
Zura Arabidze’s multimedia installation is a visualization of the complex relationship of personal and public aspects. By contrasting colors, the author conveys the theme of contrast, which can grow to conflict. It rests on the foundation of monochrome art, where each color is independent and lively, dynamic fixture in life, while the contrasting of colors does not mean just enmity — an individual color can be identified with the life of a person who is in perpetual interaction with the world, with other consciousness, and this process never ends.
The dramaturgical scheme of the installation elaborates several main themes: meeting of the barbed wire and the mirror surface represents symbolically the desire of consciousness for freedom and obstacles created by dogmas along this path. The space represents the reality overloaded with video images, information, the introduction of new values and the accompanying pressure, while the trees in the metal structure indicate an environmental disaster, the absence of future.
The exposition is interactive in the sense that it offers the visitor a special space for reflection on the personal and public aspects, for rethinking and expressing one’s own experience.
Khatuna Khabuliani, PHD Art Historian
1. Object “The Space of Impossible Liberation”
“The Space of Impossible Liberation” explores the fundamental paradox of human existence: the yearning for freedom, which inevitably collides with both internal and external limitations. At the heart of this paradox lies the existential conflict — the struggle between the desire to break free from imposed boundaries and the impossibility of escaping the very structures that define existence itself.
This concept embodies a state where an essence — whether a person, an idea, or a natural element — strives for transcendence, yet every step forward only reinforces the awareness of its entrapment. The branches of trees, frozen within a metal grid, symbolize the attempt to grow and expand, but their movement is confined within a closed space. Just as human consciousness yearns for the infinite, it is confronted by rigid boundaries imposed by both its own nature and the external world.
The idea suggests that freedom, as an ultimate goal, remains forever elusive, and every effort to achieve liberation only results in new forms of confinement. Even in the most open spaces, a person remains imprisoned by beliefs, fears, and expectations. Like a tree whose roots reach deep into the earth but can never break through its surface, our consciousness is trapped within the limits of time, memory, and the uncertainty of the future.
“The Space of Impossible Liberation” invites contemplation of the notion that true freedom may not lie in the destruction of boundaries but in accepting their existence. Perhaps the only liberation is in the realization that all limitations are inherent to being, and attempts to transcend them merely create new forms of dependency. In this sense, the installation becomes a metaphor for life as an endless cycle of struggling against invisible walls that we ourselves construct.
Each line of the metal grid, each curve of the branches within this work, points to the tension between the artificial and the organic, the static and the dynamic, the eternal and the fleeting. The tree reaches upward, but the grid dictates its geometry; consciousness dreams of the infinite, but it confronts the finiteness of the body and time. This space becomes a symbol of the inner conflict that will never find resolution, as liberation is both impossible and necessary at once.
Thus, “The Space of Impossible Liberation” invites reflection on the nature of freedom itself. It suggests that perhaps our true freedom lies not in escaping limitations but in the ability to live and grow within them, finding meaning in each moment and every twist along the path.
Installation; human factor VS nature /mixed media 400x250x4500 cm/