"MANKIND’S DOOR" ART PROJECT RAISES PROBLEM OF GENDER INEQUALITY

Noyan Tapan
Nov 15, 2007

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 15, NOYAN TAPAN. The art project under the title
"Mankind’s Doors" is dedicated to gender inequality and gender
problems in the world. The project’s first showing will take place on
November 15. The project authored by Raffi Davtian, a young Iranian
Armenian artist, includes 27 photo objects, human figures, installed
in the space, and the "inter-est" video film. Art critic Susanna
Gyulamirian, the project’s Coordinator, said this at the November 14
press conference.

According to her, this exhibition is aimed at raising gender problems
existing in the world for many ages. S. Gyulamirian said that mankind
is faced by this problem today as well, and the author tried within
the framework of this exhibition to express his complaint to every
kind of compulsions and taboos.

According to Raffi Davtian, he chose one of the brightest examples
of keeping gender traditions in Persian reality, swingles, as a start
for this project. In Iran swingles were fixed to the gate or door of
each house and served for giving a signal: the swingles for men and
women were different.

They also sounded differently: women’s swingle had a more ringing
sound.

According to the author, today they are preserved in Iranian life,
but in conditions of technological innovations, door bells, various
kinds of house codes, swingles have almost disappeared from big cities
and are preserved in smaller towns and villages.

According to S. Gyulamirian, the project’s name is an allegory, and
the selected photo objects will be bare and will wear swingles in
some parts of body. "This is a way of expression of gender identity,
through which an individual tries to come out of conventionalities
and compulsions." In his words, the exhibits do not only include
gender issues, but also raise racial, ethnic, feminist problems.