LECHAKI | DARO SULAKAURI PHOTO SHOW

“Lechaki” is Daro Sulakauri’s (born 1985) first solo show at Erti Gallery.

Lechaki is an old Georgian word and it means a silk veil. For centuries it’s been a symbol of peace and women’s role in family. It symbolizes virtuous and holiness of a woman. Selected from several projects, the works in the exhibition focus on a wide variety of women from Georgia. “House Divided” of 2018, portrays people in the Russian-occupied separatist regions between South Ossetia and Abkhazia, where the borders between Russia and Georgia are frequently encroaching on Georgian territory , causing the inhabitants to live in constant fear of losing their homeland. “Deprived of Adolescence,” 2015, testifies to the practice in rural Georgia of marrying off underage girls , following the footsteps of the family traditions—a practice that continues to this day, despite the fact that it’s illegal. “Double Aliens” from 2013 documents the region of Samtskhe Javakheti in southern Georgia, where Georgians and Armenians exist side by side but lead separate lives. They live in different villages, attend different schools, and speak different languages. “The Black Gold” story depicting the lives of mineworkers in Chiatura city, struggling to make a living, working in harsh conditions.

In their intensity, Daro Sulakauri’s photographs can be compared to the images of well-known art photographers such as Jeff Wall and Gregory Crewdson, although they came about in an entirely different manner. While the Canadian and American photographers staged their works down to the last detail using cast actors and carefully arranged artificial light, in her photographs, Sulakauri shoots authentic people without spotlights. Paired with a high degree of artistic confidence, her empathic view derives from an interest in situations that go beyond mere documentation—as well as the fact that she grew up with artist parents. For Daro Sulakauri, people and their fates are always more important than the “perfect image.”

In the Erti Gallery, the photographs are presented independently of the news reports they were made for. This allows their unique artistic quality to emerge all the more clearly, despite or even because of their often dramatic subject matter. Additionally, in a separate room at the back of the gallery, Daro Sulakauri has initiated a new project especially for this exhibition. Via Skype, visitors can communicate with Georgian women living hundreds of kilometers away from Tbilisi in their private surroundings.

Daro Sulakauri studied at the Tbilisi State University in the department of Cinematography and subsequently moved to New York, where she received her degree in Documentary Photography and Photojournalism from the International Center of Photography in 2006. She has received numerous prizes, including second place in the Magnum Foundation—Young Photographer in the Caucasus award in 2009, the EU Prize for Journalism in 2016; she won a Reuters Photojournalism Grant in 2018 and was Selected participant for the 2017 Joop Swart Masterclass. Her work can be seen in publications such as National Geographic, New York Times, Der Spiegel, Forbes, MSF, Bloomberg, among others.