David Apakidze - Remember Me Kindly

Bukia Vakhania, 14 Pavle Ingorokva str., Tbilisi, Georgia

3 April - 24 May, 2026

Bukia Vakhania presents Remember Me Kindly, David Apakidze’s first solo exhibition in Tbilisi.

The exhibition draws inspiration from Sergo Parajanov’s censored screenplay The Martyrdom of Shushanik. The artist follows Parajanov’s vision of this ancient hagiographic text, together with the sketches the director developed alongside his script. By depicting the martyr queen Shushanik, Apakidze returns to the traditions of early Christianity, presenting martyrdom, asceticism, and ecstatic experience as paths toward proximity to the divine, the transcendental. The artist is particularly concerned with the body as a central element within these traditions of devotion.

In Parajanov’s interpretation, Shushanik’s passions, her sufferings, were to be shown with stark clarity and without concealment, perhaps among the reasons the film was never realized, together with the director’s own ethnic and sexual identity. This series of works seeks to reclaim what was forbidden, lost, and erased, and to do so precisely now, when the systems of censorship remain active and continue to determine the very being or non-being of art.

David Apakidze (b. 1998, Poti, Georgia) is a visual artist and curator, and co-founder of Fungus Project and Fungus Gallery, queer art initiatives in the Caucasus region. He studied art history at the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts, where his primary focus was medieval Orthodox art – an influence that continues to shape his work.

His practice encompasses sculpture, embroidery, printmaking, and stained glass, reworking Georgian Orthodox iconography through a queer lens. His research-based approach examines the intersections of identity, tradition, and queerness.

Apakidze has participated in local and international residencies and exhibitions, including Lerblabor (Berlin, 2021), Open Out Festival (Tromsø, 2023), Gallery Artbeat (Tbilisi, 2024), Zachęta National Gallery of Art (Warsaw, 2024), and MeetFactory (Prague, 2025). In 2025, he received the Claus Michaletz Prize and a KVOST scholarship. KVOST presented his solo exhibition The Knight at the Crossroads as part of Berlin Art Week.

Special thanks to: Salome Asatiani, Mariam Chanturia, Nikoloz Devdariani, Nino Goderidze, Giorgi Gogoladze, Salome Jashi, Mariam Kiasashvili, Giorgi Maisuradze, Nini Mamaladze, Keti Mangoshvili, Zviad Menteshashvili, Naja Orashvili, Luka Pantskhava.