“I’ve been away for almost 14 years, and although I haven’t lost touch with this place and keep coming back, last year I especially felt how precious this place is to me. Last year, the last big wave of struggle began, I had a solo exhibition, and I slowly started building my queer space, because I didn’t have a community before I left. First, I came out as a queer person, then as an artist, then as a Georgian queer artist, and that’s when these terrible laws came into effect,” says Marika Kochiashvili, a photographer and sculptor, a queer artist who has been living in London for years.
We met Marika during her last return to Tbilisi. Before that, she was in the country when the Russian law was adopted for the second time and actively participated in protest rallies. She had to leave soon after and from London she observed how the protest expanded and more like-minded people gathered. Returning in August, she saw the expectation of elections, which she calls naive from this perspective. And, she saw the inaction that existed before the elections. She left again and came back again on November 28, the very day when Irakli Kobakhidze said that the country was stopping the European integration process.
“I arrived in the morning. From what I could see from the outside, the elections were stolen from us, people weren’t coming out on the streets. I arrived, went to one or two places and everyone seemed melt down. Later, I went to my sister’s, and at that moment he made the statement that suddenly brought thousands of people out. In this hopelessness, a wave of people suddenly appeared. I saw some people at the rally and they were happy that I was there. What I had before, some kind of immigrant guilt or questions, whether I still belonged here or not, standing on the streets in November and December gave me the answer — I realized that yes, this space is mine, I belong to these people, this place.”
“I Had to Be Like Other Women” — Childhood and Student Years
She tells us that her childhood experience, probably like many other women’s, was oppressive. She liked to “dress like a boy,” she felt much more comfortable that way, and although she had no idea of her own body or sexuality at the time, she would hear comments from people around her — “tomboy and other stupid things.”
“When I grew up, my friends became more feminine, but I didn’t. Then I studied acting, and there I had some space to accept my body as it was. From the age of 20-21, I had to become more like other women — straightening my hair, walking in heels, wearing dresses. And fitting in with the environment meant developing insecurities about my own body, completely losing the perception of my own sexuality. I had completely suppressed my own desires, body, and sexuality,” she says, adding that dealing with the insecurities and pressures that a patriarchal, conservative, and religious culture teaches society about femininity and girlhood proved difficult. Moreover, “it’s a long-term job that never ends.”
While studying acting, she realized that she could not be in a field where she would be dependent on others. She continued her studies in journalism and wanted to work in print media. So, after university, she found herself first at the magazine Hot Chocolate, and later at Liberali. She was especially fascinated by photojournalism. Her sister gifted her her first camera during her student years, and as she recalls, she spent a lot of time at protests, taking photos independently. She says that one of the happiest moments was when her photo was printed on the cover of Liberali.
ო, როცა ლიბერალის ყდაზე მისი ფოტო დაიბეჭდა.
Photos by Marika Kochiashvili on the covers of Liberali magazine. The first photo shows her first work which was featured on the cover.
Leaving the Country
Even though she was working and professionally fulfilled, she always had the desire to leave, from a young age.
“Since childhood, I wanted to go and study somewhere else, as if I had a desire to escape that I couldn’t fully understand. I thought I would go, study, and come back.”
While working at Liberali, she went to London to study digital journalism as part of one of the educational programs, and during that one-year period, she realized that she wanted to stay there: “I remember, half a year had passed, I returned home and thought, is this supposed to be over in 6 months and I should come back?! I said, no way.”
“Adapting to the environment means developing insecurities about one’s own body, completely losing the perception of one’s own sexuality”
Marika tells us that she has often found herself in the right place at the right time, and this was also the case during her studies in London. On her own initiative, she sent in an application for an internship at Reuters. She was accepted, and soon a vacancy appeared that she would not have been able to take advantage of if it had not been for her manager, who tried her best to give her the opportunity, despite not having a work visa. That’s how she ended up at Reuters, where she worked for 9 years.
She began her search in a creative direction in 2017. Already in 2021, during the Covid period, she reassessed many things and quit her job because, as she says, she realized that working full-time did not leave her space as an artist.
“It’s So Great That I Am a Queer”
Marika tells us that while in Georgia, she had a classic experience of being “closeted” (meaning when a person does not openly talk about their sexual orientation or gender identity. The opposite of this is “coming out”)– when she suppressed certain impulses that she noticed. Because she was in a homophobic environment, she suppressed the receipt of information related to her sexuality. Already in London, independent of family and friends, she felt freedom when she was alone.
“I keep saying that I didn’t leave because of my sexuality, but I never came back because of it. First, I started admitting to myself that I’m a queer, then I got to the point that I’m a queer, and it’s so great. At some point, I fell in love with my sexuality. Especially at the beginning, you want everyone to tell you to flaunt your queerness, which was the case with me. It was a big discovery for me: for the first time, you love yourself, your own body. I threw away my heels and the dresses I brought from Georgia, I didn’t need them anymore. For the first time, I felt completely comfortable in my own skin, in my own body. It’s hard to be looking for a man who you will never love and at the same time, you’re passing out seeing women, your knees are shaking.”
“The first time I took a picture of the woman I was passionate about.”
One of the inspirations for Marika’s creative work was a friend who left her legal career, moved to London, and continued her creative work. It was then that she realized that she could do something similar. Soon after, she and another friend saw a film in which a man openly talked about sex. They thought that women rarely spoke so openly in art. They wanted to do something in this direction.
“My friend recorded interviews with women who talked about their sexual experiences. Based on that, we wrote a script and shot a film in which my friend plays the role and is naked. This was my first experience working with a naked body. It was a very interesting and important experience, and it was there that I began to move from my professional to my artistic work. Then I wanted to take photos, and for the first time I took a picture of the woman I was passionate about.”
Nudity as a Process of Self-Discovery
She says that before taking the photos, she doesn’t know what she’s looking for or exploring. In the process of working, she realizes what she’s really aiming for. This is what happened when she photographed women’s nudity — she realized that she was actually exploring her own body and sexuality.
“Nudity in front of the camera is a vulnerable state and, at the same time, a very powerful act. And I felt such shame in front of the camera that I wanted to disappear, a terrible embarrassment. I realized that these photos were actually an exploration of my own body and sexuality. The challenge was whether I could photograph my own naked body. In 2020, when we were all alone, I shoot my own body on film, so I did not have access to the film at that moment, and before I saw the image, I distanced myself, saw it differently, without fear and rejection. This helped me a lot in accepting my own body.”
For her, male nudity is not interesting to photograph. Several experiences have made her realize that this should be explored by others. Men’s bodies still appear in her lens, but from a completely different perspective: as nudity reflected in her glasses or as opposed to the bodies of other women. Such a series is, for example, Peeping Dyke, which combines images of men reflected in the lenses of swimming goggles. It is an attempt to turn the gaze and, by giving control to the lesbian author, to present herself in the role of observer.
“When I was a teenager, you could see gay people at least somewhere, but lesbians were nowhere to be seen. I think lesbians are still much less visible in art.”
“During the Covid period, I started going to the pool, I stayed by the pool for a long time, and the perception of men’s bodies became very intense: how they took their steps, how they behaved, what they did while swimming in the pool… They try to be faster than you, they want to own the space. The pool is a microcosm, women are not visible. In reality, this space is theirs, the men’s, you don’t exist for them. They don’t even realize that you are taking it, it is actually a selfie in which they are reflected. Of course, no one is identifiable.”
She tells us about another series in which she overlays images of London’s financial district, the Georgian police force, and naked women. She says it’s an attempt to take control of men, who are portrayed as oppressors, and to completely subjugate them to her will: “I am taking away their autonomy. At the same time, it’s an exploration between desire and disgust.”
Her current project, Skin to Skin, depicts intimate moments between lesbian couples. The series has evolved over time, changing its appearance, incorporating sculptures, and later, Marika Kochiashvili, who appears as an observer, was also included in the frame. She says that she manages to capture such intimate experiences, moments of special closeness for the couple, including with the help of humor. She jokes a lot before and during the shoot, and the characters in the photos gradually open up and a feeling of closeness emerges.
“I was thinking, what am I doing that other queer photographers aren’t? I got to the point where I thought I should be in the frame, because this series is about me, basically, and the lack of representation. When I was a teenager, you could see gay people at least somewhere, but lesbians were nowhere to be seen. I think lesbians are still much less visible in art. My presence in the frame brings in an element of observation, and it’s a kind of continuation of Peeping Dyke.”
“It’s hard to be looking for a man who you will never love and at the same time, you’re passing out seeing women, your knees are shaking.”
We mentioned that she also makes sculptures. For her, sculpture is a medium in which she can do what photography does not allow her to do — to create a free and completely independent figure that can be subjected to her own fantasies. She says that it all started with a game — she bought a pack of clay at an exhibition, sculpted an identical figure of one of the artists, and realized that the process gave her complete freedom.
“You start by creating a person out of a faceless mass, you put your hand on their chest or face, and they feel something. You try to bring them there, to the emotion you want, whether it’s a open mouth during orgasm or an image of pain, tenderness, a touch.”
Censorship and a Time for Radical Art
For Marika, the representation of lesbian women is important, and her works will probably find themselves in a forbidden zone in today’s Georgia, where they have passed a hate law and are trying to legalize censorship. She says she doesn’t understand what they can do, how they can impose controls, how her queer artist friends, who are achieving more and more success on the international stage, can limit their work.
“It’s so general and so easy to interpret that if they want to target you, they can easily do it. It breaks my heart because I hear from many that they are planning to leave, thinking about it or what they will do if someone comes to them. In December, this mood was not there yet, now I notice fatigue, some people are in a moment of acceptance, which is terrible, some people — a desire to escape. I have already run away, I have nothing to lose, my space is there, but what are they going to do, how are they going to be able to survive?!… Not only queer artists, anyone who is opposing… They will try to silence anyone who contributes to the awakening of critical thought.”
She said that when she lived here, she wasn’t part of the queer spaces, but she could already see from the outside that Tbilisi had become a city of nightlife, queer and queer-friendly places were opening up, and perhaps even an illusion of more rights had emerged. But it seems that things weren’t as many had assumed — “I had my first exhibition last year. I thought I would become more acceptable, more approachable to this space, but I’m being denied the opportunity. I’m not going to self-censor, but let’s see if galleries dare.”
She tells us that this is what is happening globally — the situation in the direction of women’s rights, trans and queer rights is getting worse, and the shift that was in the representation part is being damaged again. However, she says that right now is the time for radical art and various spaces must open their doors to women, trans people, queers, because without this, they will find themselves in a state of marginalization and we will have to work hard for years again.