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.

Works and events within the cycle:

Zones of Repression 
in Kyiv

︎ technical info

Site-specific installation

For group exhibition Ain't Nobody's Business, PinchukArtCentre, Kyiv, Ukraine

Site-specific installation
Zones of Repression,
PinchukArtCentre,
Kyiv, Ukraine,
2019

Produced by PinchukArtCentre

Photographs provided
by the PinchukArtCentre © 2019.

Photographed by Maksym Bilousov

In Kiev, the installation was first shown as a fragment of the toilet, and then turned into a total installation: a corridor room covered with tiles. In this version, the inscriptions between the tiles appear gradually: at the beginning of the corridor, only a couple of inscriptions, at the end all the seams are filled.

Zones of Repression
and Fear of Castration
in Brno

︎ technical info

Fragment of site-specific installation

For group exhibition We Will Not Change Our Show, Brno House of Art, Brno, Czech

Site-specific installation
Zones of Repression
and Fear of Castration,
Brno House of Art,
Brno, Czech,
2019

In Brno, within the framework of the queer exhibition, the installation became part of the total installation Fear of Castration: Darkroom-Labyrinth
within Fear of Castration cycle.

Zones of Repression
and Fear of Castration
in Paris

[black square]

︎ technical info

Fragment of site-specific installation

For group exhibition Los Atravesados, Treize gallery, within Queer Week festival, Paris, France

Site-specific installation
Zones of Repression
and Fear of Castration,
Treize gallery, Paris, France,
2018

For queer exhibition in Paris, the tile was combined with the documentation of another cycle: Fear of Castration.

︎ technical info

Site-specific installation

For group exhibition Four Corners, Luda Gallery, Saint Petersburg, Russia

Site-specific installation
Zones of Repression:
Smelly Pipes,
Luda Gallery,
Saint Petersburg, Russia,
2014

In St. Petersburg, an installation with tiles and inscriptions between it was completed with old stinking water pipes cut off from the entrance in Minsk. Pipes taken from another cycle: Practices of Subordnation.