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MISHIKO SULAKAURI

Mishiko Sulakauri (1996)was born in Tbilisi, Georgia. His work, driven and informed by autoethnography, questions systems of consumption, production, and human interaction. His research focuses on critical issues that transcend histories, borders, power dynamics, and environmental and social struggles. He has developed a personal iconography, which draws on Georgian pre-Christian history and mythology, pictograms and other graphic icons and images. ‘Qujai is no longer it’ is the title of Mishiko Sulakauri’s solo show at CH64 Gallery. The once famed Persian Kurdish steed, Qujai, belonging to King David IV, ’the Builder’, turned on its head, the horse laments the slow fading of its glory and heroism. It is a metaphor for ailing monuments and brittle subterranean layers of history that lie undiscovered and threatened with ruin. Heritage sites that serve as sustenance for the cultural identity of people across the social strata of Georgia, secular and religious, urbanite and rural alike, hold varied meanings, limitations and evolve in a myriad of ways. Engaging with Georgian Orthodox architecture, the exhibition reflects upon power dynamics and the notion of selective acceptance of the ‘new’.