Sophio Medoidze: Artificial Sleep (Her her her her her her her HER)

About

Exploring the effects of digitisation on the remote communities of Tusheti, Georgia, where free wifi access was only recently introduced by the government to the villages (where previously one had to walk 10km to make a phone call). Medoidze explores the dilemma that the Tusheti people face: whether to ‘modernise, or remain faithful to tradition’. 

The work focuses on a bareback horse racing tradition in a remote mountain region in North-east Georgia, where midsummer celebrations of “Atingenoba’ take place - a mixture of early Christian and Pagan practices.  These rituals play a crucial part in maintaining social relations in an isolated mountain community; the roads are closed for most of the year, due to heavy snow, and the population engages in cyclical migration - one of the last nomadic communities to do so. Prioritising a dialogical form, Medoidze writes: ‘I choose to speak with the Tushetians, rather than about the Tushetians’. The work explores ritual and its role in maintaining community ties, performative masculinity, collectivity, and the symbolic and physical division of the sacred space.