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Anna Phalavandishvili constructs a visual world where characters and objects appear in familiar spaces – the bathroom and the kitchen, implying someone’s uninvited presence through these rooms, documenting intimate, habitual actions – not meant for the public eye. The artist’s house is the setting scene for this voyeuristic act, and the home, ordinarily a symbol of safety and vulnerability, here becomes a breached space open to spectatorship.

 

Phalavandishvili’s references range from 20th century cinematography to philosophy with Jean Paul Sartre’s concept of the Look holding major importance. Sartre’s conception of the Look is not that of a simple visual contact, but the moment a subject becomes aware that they can be seen, hence objectified, by another consciousness. In Phalavandishvili’s images this moment is suspended, as the viewer becomes the unseen observer. The figures’ gaze appears either averted or distressed underlining their vulnerability; they have no agency in reclaiming subjectivity or resisting perception. The viewer’s gaze fixes them into a role – exposed, unguarded, unaware mirroring Sartre’s claim that the Look transforms the Other into an object, without their consent. Hence, Phalavandishvili’s works function as a Peeping Tom, robbing characters of their freedom. Her visual vocabulary resonates with the cinematic compositions of directors such as Werner Herzog, Emir Kusturica, and Andrzej Żuławski, whose framing destabilizes the relationship between body and space. In a similar manner, Phalavandishvili’s characters hover between stillness and tension as the spaces they are placed in are charged with the psychological and spatial uncertainty of being surveilled. 

 

Phalavandishvili’s work highlights the fragile boundaries that separate intimacy from exposure as well as the protected from the violated. The images themselves bring a sense of unease to the viewer and the ethical question of voyeurism arises: are we meant to witness what unfolds in each image?​

 

- Eirini Agourzenidou, researcher