Some places don't simply have history they carry it in their walls.
During the Signaghi International Art Festival in Georgia, I created a sculpture called “I Will Protect This Life.”
I did not arrive in Signaghi knowing exactly what I would create. I was there for the first time. just like most of the artists participating with me.
I arrived in a city whose very existence began with a human need that is as old as humanity itself: the need to survive.
Signagi was built as a refuge, a place where people could seek protection during times of war and danger. The city was surrounded by massive defensive walls, with gates controlling the passage in and out. Its position among the mountains added another layer of natural protection.
Imagine living centuries ago and seeing danger approaching.
You run toward the walls. You pass through the gate.
And behind you, the gate closes.
For a moment, you are safe. Your children are safe. The people you love are inside.
The walls are between them and the danger outside.
the hotel I was staying was in exact beginning of the gate. That feeling stayed with me.
Because protection is not really about walls It is about what you are willing to stand between and the thing you love.
So I began thinking about what Signaghi would look like if its protective walls became human.
The answer became two hands.
Two hands surround the new life.
On the outside of the hands, I painted the nature of Signagi, the sketched landscape that surrounds the city and has witnessed everything that happened there.
Inside the hands, I painted the city's gate.
The same gate that once represented passage, defense and safety.
And at the very center, I placed something much smaller.
A plant.
Growing from the soil.
Alive. Fragile. Still reaching upward.
That tiny plant became the heart of the entire sculpture.
Because what are we actually protecting when we build walls?
Not the walls.
Not the gates.
Life.
A child sleeping safely.
A mother holding her family close.
A person waking up the next morning.
A seed that somehow survives the winter.
A small piece of life that refuses to disappear simply because the world around it has become dangerous.
That is why the title is “I Will Protect This Life.”
It is not a description.
It is a promise.
And perhaps that is what makes protection so deeply human. We cannot control everything that happens outside the walls. We cannot stop every war and cannot prevent every loss.
We cannot guarantee that life will never be hurt.
But sometimes we can put our hands around something fragile and say:
Not this.
This life stays.
I will protect this.
The sculpture was created during the festival itself, surrounded by the landscape that inspired it. The city was not merely the location where I made the work, it became part of the work.
Its history became the concept, the walls became the hands. Its gate became the threshold.
Its mountains became the landscape painted onto those hands.
And the life growing inside became the reason for all of it.
Then something happened that made the meaning of the sculpture even more profound to me.
When the festival ended, “I Will Protect This Life” became part of the Signaghi Museum collection.
The sculpture I created in response to the city will now remain in the city that gave birth to its idea.
And there is something almost unbearably beautiful about that.
I created a sculpture about a city that was built to protect life.
And now that sculpture will remain there, becoming part of the city's own cultural story.
Perhaps that is one of the most beautiful things art can do.
It can take a feeling that exists inside one person and give it a physical form.
It can take history and make it speak again.
It can take a place and turn it into a symbol.
And sometimes, if we are lucky, the artwork doesn't simply leave with us. It stays behind.
I didn't just create a sculpture in Signaghi.
I created a sculpture about what Signagi has always stood for.
Protection. Nurturing. Resilience. And the quiet, stubborn continuation of life.
I will protect this life.
