Zones of Repression cycle:
ID: C13
Date:
Since 2014
Introduction:
The installation of Zones of Repression – this is a walls of tiles. A collection of texts and diagrams is assembled on the interplate fugue. In Belarus many men get to know each other using public toilets. Like in other countries, they leave their contacts and offers of sexual nature in the form of inscriptions on the walls of toilet stalls. But in Belarus all public spaces are cleaned until they shine. Cities are almost sterile. Even in public toilets, cleaning services quickly erase any inscriptions and graffiti. Therefore, visitors began to write messages to each other in a small inconspicuous font on the grout between the tiles. Sergey Shabohinhas collected a whole collection of such hidden inscriptions. And they included not only proposals of sexual nature, but also many subcultural remarks, political opposition statements, and expressions of homophobic and racist aggression, as well drawings and symbols.
This installation is an image of public space in Belarus: sterilised, aggressive towards any divergent forms of behavior, where everything that does not fit into the norms of the patriarchal and conservative Belarusian state is pushed into the hidden zones: clubs, apartments, toilets, etc. These seams, according to the authorities, are covered with mud, but for Sergey Shabohin it is a symbol of freedom for absolutely any utterance. And let all the tile be cleaned until they shine, let all the abnormal statements be pushed to the seams between them – in the end we see the grid as an image of direct social ties, and as a skeleton of society.
