2014

Blood on Silk: State Silk Museum, 2014, installation, silk paper, rice paper found objects, paint, stickers, video and thread, dimensions variable

The two layers of the exhibition, the drawings and collages on the wall and the large sheets of silk paper hung from the ceiling to near the floor are activated when that in between space is occupied by the viewer. It is not possible to see the detail of the work on the wall clearly through the silk paper. The visitor had to get into the narrow passageway and therefore had a very close intimate relationship with the work. The silk paper moved as they progresses through the space both retreating and coming closer to almost touch the visitor.

The work on the wall referenced the trading routes of the former silk routes and the new trading routes for bioproducts such as blood. Commercially produced maps, contextually located in the world view of the mapmakers were butted up to interpretations of this space of travel, the focuses of exchange/trade and the goods of trade.

The State Silk Museum founded by the natural scientist Nikolai Shavrov is one of the oldest among the world’s silk museums. The museum is located in a building, which was specially built for the Caucasian Sericulture Station in 1887 by Polish architect Alexander Shimkevich. The building has a status of a cultural heritage monument at present. The museum displays quite a versatile and multinational exposition. The collection features objects from 63 countries. Unlike other silk museums (mostly displaying only silk collections) the showing offers everything about silk and sericulture: a unique collection of cocoons (5 000 cocoons of different origins and variations); silkworm biology; special containers for silkworms and eggs (approximately 200 containers); a collection of textile artisanally produced in the Caucasus (19th century); a collection of laces produced in Germany (approximately 400 patterns); a collection of natural and chemical dyes with colored threads (dyes from 16 countries); a butterfly collection (314 butterflies of 161 species); a collection connected with a mulberry tree and etc. There is a unique library in the museum, keeping rare books dating back to the 18th-19th centuries, these books about natural sciences are in Russian, English, German, French, Italian, Rumanian, Hungarian, Chinese, Japanese, Persian, Arabian languages. Museum and library furniture made according to sketches of the architect A. Shimkevitch have preserved their authentic image until today.

Videographer Guram Kapanadze

One of the public programmes associated with the exhibition was to get a blood test that told you your blood group in the A, B, O and AB system. The queue to get this test was huge and extended out the door and into the long corridor. As a takeaway you could get a blood passport as a record. There is an image below of the process, the queue and the passport.