Georgian Sea
The series portrays the western regions of the Caucasus republic where it borders the Black Sea. The photographs open an abstract dialogue with excerpts from a collection of poems from the Dariani Cycle, first published in 1915. The poems stood out for their boldness and openly described female erotic fantasies published under the pseudonym of Elene Dariani. Elene Dariani is one of the most mysterious figures in Georgian literary history. The poems were listed alongside the work of the Georgian symbolist Paolo Iashvili, since they were not acceptable for a woman in Georgia at the time. After republication in 1959, Elene Bakradze claimed the authorship, but the poems were only attributed to her after her death in 1979. The dialogue reflects the tension between societal constraints and the spirit of female expression, weaving together the era of the symbolist movement with Georgia’s ongoing struggle for gender equality.