Make An Island For Yourself

Make An Island For Yourself
Museum of Azerbaijani Painting of 20th-21st Centuries
December 1, 2020–May 30, 2021

Make an island for yourself Create yourself Strengthen in solitude

From “Make an Island for Yourself”, a poem by Aydin Efendi, 1991 The exhibition project Make An Island for Yourself presents the works of Azerbaijani artists of different generations created in the late 80s—first half of the 90s. The concept of the exhibition is based on an appeal to eternal existential themes—hope and disappointment, war and love, death and rebirth.

The acquisition of state independence by former Soviet republics took place in different historical ways. In Azerbaijan, the years after the collapse of the USSR were years associated with the war that led to the occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions of the country, which became one of the most tragic pages in Azerbaijani history. Therefore, this exhibition is largely about memory, historical heritage and national identity.

The Make An Island for Yourself exhibition consists of three parts, figuratively reflecting the historical events of the period between 1988 and 1996. The period of "hopes for change and anticipation of an impending catastrophe", the period of "the outbreak of tragedy—the war and its consequences" and the period of "reviving life and rays of light at the end of the tunnel."

In the title of the exhibition, we hear the theme of loneliness and solitude as a spiritual salvation in times of collapse. The poem and the works presented at the exhibition are united and echo in the intensity of both the image and the inner message. This fusion is very characteristic and symbolic of the representation of the period to which the exhibition is dedicated.

The art works of the exhibition are presented together with video from documentary photographs and video chronicles of those years, reconstructing and visualizing the state and mood of the society of that period.

Curator: Sabina Shikhlinskaya