The Flag (1990)

“Your dad brought the flag in 1990. It was a personal gift from Zviad Gamsakhurdia, who gave it to him before he became the president of Georgia. It was said that the burgundy symbolized Georgian blood and the black and white in the left corner represented war, pain, loss and ethnic conflicts. However, our family were internationalists who were constantly visited by friends of different nationalities and religions - Ossetians, Russians, Chechens, Azeris, Ingusthetians, Armenians and so on - this flag brought nothing to us but ridicule from the nationalists.”

The Dress (1993)

“I always used to sew my own clothes. I also worked at a factory for a while until I got married. When the war started, everything, including clothes, became harder to find. At that time, I had already had my first child and I was very thin, no longer in good shape. There were no jobs, so I was unemployed. While your dad was fighting in the Abkhazia War for several months, I had no choice but to sew a dress from the flag. I was constantly wondering and worrying about how others would perceive it. To be honest, I was afraid that people would tell me that I should not have sewed it and I would have felt ashamed.

Once I took you to the doctor while wearing the dress. It was a cold day and the doctor asked if I had anything else to wear. I said nothing, I did not know whether she recognized the flag cloth or whether she mocked me because the dress was not suitable for the cold weather. I could not even tell her that I did not have any other dresses, or that I sewed this one from the flag because I was afraid she would get angry with me. When your dad arrived and saw the dress, he did not say anything but I could tell that he was a little bit offended. However, he knew that our family did not have any other choice. “

The Bag (1996)

“Things got harder after I had my second child. He was born with two congenital diseases. However, we could not survive by staying home. I was forced to work outside the village, bringing and selling fruits and other products in Tbilisi. This was how I earned money for bread and medicine. As I did not have a big bag, I thought the dress could be turned into a bag as it was made out of durable cloth. I remodelled the flag/dress into a bag and went to “Dezerter Bazaar”, using it to carry home things.“