Dina Oganova is a Georgian photographer. I first got to know her work in 2015, at Photoquai in Paris where her project I am Georgia was being shown. Her images in black and white capture the everyday life of a country - Sakartvelo, by its original name - which still lives with a lot of traditions. Men and women are depicted in their traditional clothes. and Dina’s eyes often focus on the women as the center of the images. I found the pictures of Georgia she offered very intimate and lively at the same time, full of an “ancient” elegance. Some look like stills from a movie, that you just want to keep in your memory.
When I asked Dina to talk about her work, she offered to present another project made in Georgia: Frozen Waves.
It’s a story where what is called “love” becomes a burden, an obligation that young girls have to fulfill. In Georgia men still kidnap girls in order to marry them. After being kidnapped it is very difficult for the girls to either go back to their families or to marry someone else. They are considered as having a new “owner”, and to have lost their virginity. «It was “normal” in 90’s Georgia, nobody even protested» Dina explains,
When I grew up, I thought it was over, but then in 2014, I met a very young girl. We started to talk and she invited me to her wedding. I was shocked, when asked if she was in love, she said: "No, he just kidnapped me". I didn't know what to do or what to say and I realized that this issue didn't end in my childhood. This was for me the start of the project.
In Frozen Waves, Dina collected the stories of 10 women, and 2 men. The images are wrapped in a sense of solitude, of something trapped, something lost. Lips closed. Women become almost invisible, while the men are proud to show their faces and proud of their actions. I was particularly impressed by a story that Dina told me. She was in a village for another shoot, and a man who wanted to kidnap a girl came looking for her. He knew that Dina was making a book about the subject and he wanted to be in it. Dina started a friendship with the girl he wanted to kidnap. She managed to tell the story from the inside, showing both courage and determination. The attempted kidnapping failed on this occasion, under Dina’s eyes.
The Georgian government made a law about kidnapping, but it still doesn't work. When police come they say it is a matter of "love", and they can't do anything. Also, girls are scared to call the police because they know that after one year the man will be free from jail and could maybe even kill her. So they prefer not to report and stay with him.