Salome Potskhverashvili is Georgian visual artist and director. Along with her independent works, she created content for the Georgian brand “SITUATIONIST”. Her films and experimental vision were some of the key components in shaping the brand.
I work in a variety of mediums such as video, photography, and installation. For the past two years, the lens served as a bridge between my inner and outer worlds, a bridge between existing and living.
Drawing was my favorite school activity when I was around ten years old. It didn’t matter which class I was in; all I cared about was drawing my classmates, transforming them into the characters, and creating different storylines about them. This I usually expressed through storyboards, which depicted the story in sequence, scene by scene. Of course, I had no idea what a real storyboard looked like at the time; I was just doing it instinctively to give a visible form to my imagination. Creating the storyboards had no aesthetic purposes. It had an idea and a well-structured narrative that was at times dramatic, at times satirical, and at times a manifestation of my dreams and desires.
I never intended for my work to be visually appealing to the viewer. My artistic practice has evolved into a way of living that requires non-stop thinking. It helps me to get to know myself, as well as to acknowledge the surroundings and every detail about the world I live in. The most important responsibility of an artist is to always be truthful. The key to a successful creative process is honesty.
For me, it’s about who you think you are, and it’s a rather complicated process; it’s quite difficult to be sincere, and probably total sincerity doesn’t exist, but I believe an artist should value faithfulness the most. I don’t believe there are any specific boundaries or limits, I don’t believe that this sincerity has specific limits, and I don’t believe that one should set limits or abstain from something.
childhood storyboards
When I work, I am attracted by the interactions between people from various social groups and their natural surroundings. I’m concerned with their feelings, perceptions, and impulses from various cultural or ethnic perspectives. I’m constantly investigating myself as a human being. I search and observe the intersections and relationships between human, nature, and time. I’m mystified by how and where the moment in front of my lens can exist in another reality.
When I walk outside, when I observe, even the smell changes, and the most important thing for me was to show where all of this is happening, not create my own view of the world and not create an illusion but represent the real one. It was the very first presentation so in my opinion, it should be introductory.
fragments from various fashion films shot for SITUATIONIST
As an artist in my independent works, I always focus on relationships or relations, be it between people, with nature, with time, with oneself, and basically all of my work is based on these “relationships”. I didn’t do it on purpose, it just happened that when I looked back over my works, everything revolved around relationships. The theme still matters to me, and I continue to do so to this day.
I also love collecting things, for example, I love collecting stones from various locations and then arranging or scattering them in various locations. I associate this process with my artistic process of collecting videos and photos and then assembling them into a single whole picture.
For me, throwing something away is wasting. I have my own practice, and I collect different images like little stones, and you can take one moment in the past and connect it to the future…
It’s possible that I didn’t pay attention to the shot five years ago, and it ended up in an abandoned folder, but five years later, this shot became important to me in ways I couldn’t have imagined.
This is exactly what communicating with myself is, because when you put together, let’s say, three different processes; the moment I took this shot, then the moment I canceled this shot, and then the time when I rediscovered it, it’s very interesting for me.
When I am feeling down, I like to write, these writings can then serve as inspiration in the future, allowing me to journey through time, and develop a connection with myself.
It’s especially important to me to respect the people I shoot. In this very intimate process, it’s essential to communicate with them and let them see what I do. Which turns out to be very hard to explain and even harder to comprehend, but somehow, I’ve gained their trust so far.
This is unquestionably an important part of the creative process. When you simply cannot get what you desired, or what you planned, or something that does not satisfy you, this is a painful experience for me as well. Sometimes it can be devastating, because I came to the conclusion that that’s it, I have failed, but the main thing here is to gather strength.
I believe that I follow my instincts in every way while working on a video, however on the most resent project that I worked on, I chose to take somewhat different approach, and film myself. Which is strange because I was likewise alone in a hostile environment. I don’t believe I have any other weapons rather than my instincts.
Observing how reality can be the most surreal thing at the same time, always leads me to discovering the answers I’m looking for. The majority of my works are the documentation of events, moments, and unexpected sceneries. I never know when and what will happen, so I remain vigilant and aware of my surroundings. For one of my projects ‘Man may work from sun to sun, but woman’s work is never done’ I sat motionless by the window for more than one week, observing women do their daily housework. Working on natural and realistic scenes requires a great deal of patience and alertness. That is when luck, as a skill, is awakened.
Basically, I prefer working alone, just me and my camera
“Defense Mechanism” is a two-channel video installation that metaphorically depicts the complete denial of external events and circumstances in order to avoid emotional impact or, in a worse case, leaving the comfort zone. In the film, we see two completely different sceneries filmed in two completely different realities. The connection is the detachment and the sense of denial. The simplicity of both natural events is astonishing, with such a strong contrast as harshness and tenderness, circulation of gaining and releasing the energy. To me, the working process sometimes is more important than the end result. The flood of emotions that shooting the scenes gave me, made me realize how fortunate I was to be able to witness the moments. Because the filming process was a true physical experience, the film aims to provide the same emotional live experience. To demonstrate how precious and unrealistic every moment can be in our daily lives if we are a little more mindful.
“Defense Mechanism”