Highlights
- Georgian-born artist Nina Sanadze will unveil her new sculpture, “Call to Peace”, as a socially-engaged art project in Melbourne on 25 March
- The clay sculpture is a replica of a monument by Soviet artist Valentin Topuridze created in the wake of World War II
- The artist says the monument is ‘like a prayer’ amid growing tensions on the Ukraine-Russia border
For Melbourne-based visual artist and sculptor Nina Sanadze, the Georgian Civil War of the early 1990s remains a painful memory.
Born in the former Soviet state of Georgia, Ms Sanadze migrated to Australia in 1996.
The Churchie Emerging Art Prize 2021 winner's latest artwork, “Call to Peace”, is a replica of a similarly named monument by the Soviet sculptor Valentin Topuridze, which was installed atop a theatre in the Georgian town of Chiaturi in 1948.
Sculpted in the wake of World War II, Mr Topuridze’s monument was later destroyed amid the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.
Nina Sanadze in the studio with her clay sculpture model Call to Peace. Photo by Mark Henry, February 2022 Source: Supplied by Nina Sanadze
But as the unfolded, Ms Sanadze realised her sculpture carries an extra layer of meaning.
“Even today, in our modern world, people can be so reckless and start a new war so easily,” she told SBS Russian, struggling to hold back her tears.
Many people have a feeling of upcoming conflict, and this monument is like a prayer.
As a child, Ms Sanadze recalls often visiting her neighbours - the family of Mr Topuridze.
While many of his official public monuments were destroyed in post-Soviet Georgia, some remained in an archive, which Nina inherited and brought to Australia. She has since created several installations based on this archive that have been exhibited in Melbourne, Brisbane and her home city of Tbilisi.
Last year one of these installations, "Apotheosis", won the Churchie Emerging Art Prize. Guest judge Rhana Devenport, director of the Art Gallery of South Australia, said at the announcement of the award:
“Drawing on her own familial history in Georgia (former USSR), Nina Sanadze is compelled to respond to some of the great forces of our time – ideology, authority, monuments, conflict and survival – amidst the transient yet insistent fabric of memory, beauty and tenderness.”
After working with the whole archive of Mr Topuridze, Ms Sanadze decided to look closer at particular artworks and chose “Call to Peace” as a prototype for her new monument.
'Apotheosis' installation by Nina Sanadze, ACE Open, Brisbane, 2021. Photo by Grant Hancock. Source: Supplied by Nina Sanadze
She told SBS Russian she liked the name of the sculpture, so she made a copy based on a small outline and photograph of the monument.
She said she appreciates that the woman depicted in the sculpture wasn’t armed, "she was more like a worried mother who steps forward in horror seeing what war can bring".
Ms Sanadze defines the original Georgian sculpture as a “Soviet replica of Nike of Samothrace”.
'Call to Peace' monument by Valentin Topuridze, Chiatura, Georgia, 1948. Topuridze family archive photo. Source: Supplied by Nina Sanadze
"This is a figure of a woman with outstretched arms. The wind plays with her dress - the sleeves and fabric actually form her wings. This woman is like an Amazon, tall, strong. She looks like me, so I sculpted this sculpture exactly my height," Ms Sanadze said.
Through her art, she hopes to share a message with the world - to rethink history, not repeat it.
Our desire to prevent what might happen is probably naive, but that's all I can do as an artist.
“As we rethink sculptures and World War II, these Soviet monuments transform from Soviet propaganda into a reminder of what happened then and carry a positive message.”
The sculpture will be displayed as a temporary socially-engaged installation surrounded by scaffolding on the corner of Coventry Street and Clarendon Street, South Melbourne, from 25 March.
Nina Sanadze, Melbourne-based visual artist Source: Supplied by Nina Sanadze
Ms Sanadze said she envisages it as a place where community members can gather, share memories and wish for peace.
The public will also be able to engage in weekly community workshops with the artist, as well as musical and dancing performances.
“I will ask people to write their wishes for peace on ribbons and we will tie them [to the installation],” she said.
This first public incarnation of the monument will be followed in August by a new exhibition by the artist in Melbourne.
