Dina Khashkhozh

My name is Dina Khashkhozh. It took me the whole year to work on the project "Transformation". I chose the girls for it among my friends , not models. Not accidentally all participants are originally Circassian. It was very important to pick up different girls but at the same time the ones who had typical Circassian features. Specially for that I traveled to the city of Nalchik . I did the make-up of the girls by myself wanting to ensure that the texture of white that I have applied on the skin was all different, at some cases rough , at some soft . According to the plan, I depersonalized the girls to almost beyond recognition. They became white sheets on which in some cases I put the ornament on.


A series of works under the title " Transformation " is a metamorphosis of the changing time . Nothing remains still, everything is developing, it changes and transforms. On the faces of my characters there appear an ornament , in a quite different and unusual but still traditional form . Against the pale, impersonalized face there appear bright geometric shapes which are a transformed ornament, that depersonalizes. All subjects to the logic , the heroine gets in a completely different world, which is new but still belongs to the old and beautiful Circassian culture. The u n c o n s c i o u s work.

Sheshan means "horse behaving". The dance is a fast piece with (4:4) time signature; this particular piece is played differently by pulling the Bellows of the Pshina (accordion) in and out rapidly to create an Off Beat Rhythm which produces a Rhythm two times faster than its time signature, and the word shishan is a Circassian word and it is not linked to Chechen.

The Purmagazine - Мифы, сказания, легенды относятся к самым ранним произведениям устного народного творчества. Мифология это одно из проявлений коллективного сознания. Склонны ли вы полагать, что адыгский народ умеет и способен объединиться?Я сразу вспомнил расхожий стереотип, якобы во всех бедах адыгского народа виноваты разрозненность и неумение сплотиться в нужный момент. Мне кажется, это не так. Мы можем объединяться. Но нельзя объединиться просто так. Люди объединяются вокруг чего-то и ради чего-то. Нужна какая-то цель. И если видение этой цели и средств ее достижения совпадают, то адыги объединяются. Все нормально.

Юрий Темирканов - человек амбициозный. Он говорит, что в юности ему очень хотелось наград, званий, славы. Впрочем, все это он получил - и довольно скоро. ..

Original French antique print with a wonderful portrait of a Russian Circassian man in traditional outfit. A rare tinted photographic print, taken from a booklet on Russia. It was produced with the process of zincography. About 120 years old.

Rushdy Abaza (1926 : 1980)