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Contemporary Art Archive - Tbilisi

Archive of Academic Writings

2021 Edition of the Project is supported by the Ministry of Culture, Sport and Youth of Georgia

The Fabric of the Everyday Life

Installation

Tamar Chabashvili

installation, moving gallery by Project ArtBeat
2017

For this exhibition I use elements from my previous works: a tablecloth, a bundle and a patter book to create a new narrative in the context of a Container, a mobile exhibition space. The containers are usually intended to store and transport goods, while keeping its content invisible. Putting emphasis on hidden content my works will speak about the women’s painful experiences that mostly remain unnoticed.

All those works are based on textile and take their reference from the utility objects from local crafts. By looking at the complexities of everyday life as patterns, my attempt is to speak about the violence of the daily routine dictated by the social or cultural norms. Each and every work is an attempt to offer the space for the unheard voice.

Traditionally the tablecloth are decorated by women and kept within families often for decades despite stains and mends they accumulate. These family treasures, like diaries, hold personal memories the traces of which remain invisible. Associated with collective space, the tablecloth can make public the issues that are kept silent.

A bundle, a rectangular piece of cloth, is connected to mobility and has been an essential item to carry and store personal belongings, during one’s journey or relocation. As a devoted companion to the holder it represents an archive of one’s lived experiences.

A Pattern Book is a collection of samples for different patterns on fabrics and is used as a guide to possible designs. As a presentation space it can collect and store the elements that are challenging the traditional patterns and offers space for new narratives.