The Dust Became the Breath: Aidan Salakhova

The Dust Became the Breath

Aidan Salakhova

at Gazelli Art House, London

Moon marked and touched by sun   

my magic is unwritten

but when the sea turns back

it will leave my shape behind.   

I seek no favor

untouched by blood

unrelenting as the curse of love   

permanent as my errors

or my pride

I do not mix

love with pity

nor hate with scorn

and if you would know me

look into the entrails of Uranus   

where the restless oceans pound…

Audre Lorde - A Woman Speaks

The Dust Became the Breath builds its narrative around the work of Aidan Salakhova, structuring a decadent discourse on cultural and sexual identity, religion and spirituality, traditional symbols, and journeys taken inward. Experimenting with implicit forms of time and memory, Aidan’s body of work elicits a sense of mysticism and transcendence, exploring the nature of feminine presence through time. 

The artist allows for simultaneous existence in multiple realities: internally and externally, past and present, experiencing and being experienced, while attempting to escape such constraints imposed by the principles of duality as feminine vs. masculine, consciousness vs unconsciousness, guilt vs remorse, personal vs public, presence vs absence, past struggles vs present identities, the East vs the West. 

Going beyond time and space while challenging the persistence of the patriarchy by focusing on powerful female personification, the exhibition elucidates Salakhova’s personal experiences as untold stories and social stigmas take their rightful place in global discourse. The exhibition, akin to Audre Lorde’s poetical practice, honours women, and in an almost Sufi manner, the dichotomy of I-Other is transcended, becoming one universal non-duality.