Gut Feeling
It’s a study of animalistic state through the idea of a cage.
The literal and metaphorical image of the cell became woven into my life: in June 2024 I was placed in a detention facility. I spent 2 months there, and later I spent 4 months on house arrest. At present I qualify as a political prisoner.
As I felt myself an animal trapped in a cage, I became interested in the phenomenon of a domesticated animal that could fall in love with his cage. Similar to a smiling labrador waiting for a bowl of his favorite food, the cage can become an understandable symbol of stability. It resonates with my childhood since dogs were my first friends. My mother gave her breast milk to the bullterrier who became my milk brother.
Together with captivity comes the idea of hunting, which appeals to the dialectic of predator and victim (slave and master). In each victim there is a hidden desire to become food in the teeth of the predator, as it is natural for the predator’s will to power. Unwittingly feeling like a trophy in the hands of the state (since the case against us was deemed a political case), I pictured myself and other political prisoners as helpless birds hanging on a game-bag. Just like a duck’s paw is tied in a bundle, my legs were trapped in an ankle monitor during house arrest. As I strolled through the prison yard the size of a small kitchen, I thought of huge elephants in a zoo, locked in a tiny space, rocking back and forth.
I began to explore legitimate forms of violence, finding in it the expression of what has happened to me. I do not want to turn away from it, and I wouldn’t want others to look away from it as something uncomfortable. I began to visit agricultural farms where animals often live in enclosures, like prison cells, where people extract maximum resources from them. From the milking apparatus to the rabbit slaughter - I saw it as metaphors of the violence committed against me.
The literal and metaphorical image of the cell became woven into my life: in June 2024 I was placed in a detention facility. I spent 2 months there, and later I spent 4 months on house arrest. At present I qualify as a political prisoner.
As I felt myself an animal trapped in a cage, I became interested in the phenomenon of a domesticated animal that could fall in love with his cage. Similar to a smiling labrador waiting for a bowl of his favorite food, the cage can become an understandable symbol of stability. It resonates with my childhood since dogs were my first friends. My mother gave her breast milk to the bullterrier who became my milk brother.
Together with captivity comes the idea of hunting, which appeals to the dialectic of predator and victim (slave and master). In each victim there is a hidden desire to become food in the teeth of the predator, as it is natural for the predator’s will to power. Unwittingly feeling like a trophy in the hands of the state (since the case against us was deemed a political case), I pictured myself and other political prisoners as helpless birds hanging on a game-bag. Just like a duck’s paw is tied in a bundle, my legs were trapped in an ankle monitor during house arrest. As I strolled through the prison yard the size of a small kitchen, I thought of huge elephants in a zoo, locked in a tiny space, rocking back and forth.
I began to explore legitimate forms of violence, finding in it the expression of what has happened to me. I do not want to turn away from it, and I wouldn’t want others to look away from it as something uncomfortable. I began to visit agricultural farms where animals often live in enclosures, like prison cells, where people extract maximum resources from them. From the milking apparatus to the rabbit slaughter - I saw it as metaphors of the violence committed against me.
