The Hunter Erects the City

Author: Anna Dziapshipa

01.02.18

I entered the women’s most sacred, secret space to explore femininity as a union of sexuality and freedom. The Sulphur baths teem with naked bodies, but that profusion of flesh and skin leaves room to disremember beauty standards and recreate a more complete and truthful feminine figure.

I disassembled women’s bodies to find unity.  The creative process was like an epiphany as the partition revealed a unique wholeness. Yet that which creates can also destroy. 

Our modern world (ab)uses this creative process: in advertisements, images and words are cut into pieces and collaged together to misrepresent and damage the female body. The path to shape our bodies according to a dictated, widely internalized model can lead to alienation. At the end of that track, we often only hurt our bodies and our confidence.

As I delved into the video’s verbal element, I discovered texts written by women - their words were bold, their messages daring.  I disassembled those sentences through cut-up techniques.  What I have got as a final result could be a general feminine manifesto. And my personal one.

It is our collective, perfect body-- and its voice.  

The subtitles are inspired by the blog published by Sapari, a Tbilisi-based organization assisting victims of domestic violence and advocating for women’s rights. Special thanks to the organization for the right to use this material.