Exhibition

musical performance, video documentation, 16’40” (screening during the opening night)

“The Wild Instrument” is an ongoing project initiated by Sherko Abbas. The artist developed a musical instrument from a small handmade object called damaqachan [spoke]. In Iraq, damaqachan is a simple toy, constructed from bicycle spokes, nails and matches, which sets off miniature explosions. Abbas’s instrument operates on a similar principle and, when played, issues random sounds resembling explosions. While it has to be operated by a human being, only with difficulty can one control the sounds it will make or anticipate what sort of music can be made with it. Abbas is fascinated with the way the object can acquire a relative autonomy.

Abbas was aware that the Iraqi instrument he was creating was inextricably linked to the realities of war, destruction and violence. But he uses it neither to comment nor to judge, but to demonstrate how the Iraqi culture had absorbed the war and how, as a result, everyday life has undergone a change.

“When the Wild Instruments Sing” was performed in 2014 and 2015 at Goldsmiths, University of London, in collaboration with two contemporary musicians: the improviser and cello player Khabat Abas, and the improviser and composer Hardi Kurda (in 2014 also with Kani Kamil, who played the daf drum).

Abbas also invited Hardi Kurda to his studio asking him to create a graphic notation which, as he hoped, would make possible the discovery of a particular language to which his instrument could respond. Rather than write musical notation, Hardi drew a movement reflecting the way the instrument is played, and named it: “pull and release”.

based on: sherkoabbas.com and information provided by the artist

Sherko Abbas is a Kurdish-Iraqi artist. Born in 1978 in Iran, where his family lived as refugees, Abbas came to Iraq when he was two years old. He graduated from the College of Fine Arts, University of Sulaimani (BA, 2005) and Goldsmiths, University of London (MFA Fine Art, 2015).

In his artistic practice Abbas uses video, performance, sculpture, text and sound. His work is dedicated to the sonic and visual memory as well as geopolitical situation of contemporary Iraq. He has participated in numerous exhibitions all over the world, including “Estrangement”, The Showroom, London (2010); “Vernacularity”, at the Alternativa International Contemporary Visual Art Festival in Gdańsk, Polan (2015); “Archaic”, the Iraq Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale (2017); “Bagdad mon amour”, Institut des Cultures d’Islam, Paris (2018); “Speaking Across Mountains”, Middle East Institute, Washington D.C. (2019); “Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin 2019”, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2019) and Louvre Auditorium, Paris (2020); “Theater of Operations. The Gulf Wars 1991–2011”, MoMA PS1, New York (2019/2020).

Abbas also works as a curator, organizer and coordinator of cultural events. He curated, inter alia, the project “Sermedy Le 437.072 sq km” (2007) and was the operation manager of the project “Post-war Culture in Iraq” (2010), both at the Amna Suraka Museum, Sulaimani. In 2017, in collaboration with the curator Aneta Szyłak, he researched and coordinated the project “In-between Worlds. Kurdish Contemporary Artists”, resulting in a collection of artworks from over 30 Kurdish-Iraqi artists and a book. The collection is now part of the Imago Mundi collection under the auspices of the Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche, Treviso, Italy.

In 2014 and 2015 at Goldsmiths, University of London, he initiated sound performances “When the Wild Instruments Sing”, using a “wild instrument” which he had made with his own hands. Participating in the performances were his sister Khabat Abas, improviser and cellist, and Hardi Kurda, improviser and composer (and in 2014 also Kani Kamil).

sherkoabbas.com

video, 7’03”

[…] Nearly two hundred years after Beethoven wrote his “Egmont” overture, a young Kurdish cello player Khabat Abas was invited by Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra to join them in rehearsals. The moment was very special. It was the year 2003 and American invasion had just ended Saddam’s rule over Iraq. The Baghdad Philharmonics was quite unexpectedly invited to Washington to play a concert at the Kennedy Center along with the American National Symphony Orchestra. Special attention was put into bringing musicians representing diverse Iraqi ethnicities, even if they were not actual members of this orchestra. Thus, Khabat packed her belongings and traveled to Baghdad, carrying not only her cello but also an H8 camera. […]

On November 9th 2003, in front of George W. and Laura Bush, Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld, they play the concert, including the monumental and solemn “Egmont” overture, mourning the death of Lamoraal. Before the concert, Colin Powell gives a speech on democracy and peace. Two orchestras meet on the stage to give an impression of human unity and musicians belonging to two nations that had just clashed in the war play together. This is a moment of celebrating political hegemony, when it had already been externally decided when and under what conditions Iraq would become a democratic and capitalist society, and the carefully selected members of the two nations arrive as a promise of peace. […]

The concert is over and the group returns to Iraq soon after. However, later, presented with the possibility, many musicians who tour foreign countries with the orchestra, run away, seeking refuge in the West. Khabat also left for Europe and nobody knew where the footage from her trip might be. She thought that it was long lost, and so did her family. It is only recently that her brother Sherko Abbas found the long-lost material in the family archive, and the footage became a basis of his new work “Music of the Bush Era”. In the work, he juxtaposes, on two parallel screens, the archival footage from his sister’s tape and contemporary recordings, to tell the story of the unlikely trip she took, including the perspective of the female cameraperson vis-à-vis propaganda. […]

Abbas takes on both private memory and culture with its resources to tackle the issue of the false image of Iraq and the sonic sphere of power relations in the war zone. For this reason, he returns to learn about art and culture in archival materials. His interest is personal, not general. Family is the key element here, it is still first and foremost a personal experience of Khabat, involved in exploring and showing the data coming from the country where heritage is destroyed and possibility of being safe limited. […]

excerpts from the essay Hegemony. Sostenuto, ma non troppo. On Sherko Abbas’s ‘‘Music of the Bush Era” by Aneta Szyłak, published in the catalogue of the “Archaic” exhibition, the Iraq Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale, 2017

Sherko Abbas is a Kurdish-Iraqi artist. Born in 1978 in Iran, where his family lived as refugees, Abbas came to Iraq when he was two years old. He graduated from the College of Fine Arts, University of Sulaimani (BA, 2005) and Goldsmiths, University of London (MFA Fine Art, 2015).

In his artistic practice Abbas uses video, performance, sculpture, text and sound. His work is dedicated to the sonic and visual memory as well as geopolitical situation of contemporary Iraq. He has participated in numerous exhibitions all over the world, including “Estrangement”, The Showroom, London (2010); “Vernacularity”, at the Alternativa International Contemporary Visual Art Festival in Gdańsk, Polan (2015); “Archaic”, the Iraq Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale (2017); “Bagdad mon amour”, Institut des Cultures d’Islam, Paris (2018); “Speaking Across Mountains”, Middle East Institute, Washington D.C. (2019); “Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin 2019”, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2019) and Louvre Auditorium, Paris (2020); “Theater of Operations. The Gulf Wars 1991–2011”, MoMA PS1, New York (2019/2020).

Abbas also works as a curator, organizer and coordinator of cultural events. He curated, inter alia, the project “Sermedy Le 437.072 sq km” (2007) and was the operation manager of the project “Post-war Culture in Iraq” (2010), both at the Amna Suraka Museum, Sulaimani. In 2017, in collaboration with the curator Aneta Szyłak, he researched and coordinated the project “In-between Worlds. Kurdish Contemporary Artists”, resulting in a collection of artworks from over 30 Kurdish-Iraqi artists and a book. The collection is now part of the Imago Mundi collection under the auspices of the Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche, Treviso, Italy.

In 2014 and 2015 at Goldsmiths, University of London, he initiated sound performances “When the Wild Instruments Sing”, using a “wild instrument” which he had made with his own hands. Participating in the performances were his sister Khabat Abas, improviser and cellist, and Hardi Kurda, improviser and composer (and in 2014 also Kani Kamil).

sherkoabbas.com

video, 8’12”

The Kurdish uprising of 1991 against the venomous dictator Saddam Hussein continues to be an important historical event for all Kurdish people. It was the day that marked the defeat of the Ba’ath regime in Kurdistan’s cities. Each year, video footage showing the exact moment that people broke into the notorious prison in Sulaimani is shown in commemorative TV shows on Kurdish channels. Amna Suraka – The Red Prison (or Security Prison) – was a dreadful building in the middle of the city. It stood out as a symbol of terror and oppression, for many years; hundreds of Kurdish men and women were tortured and killed there by the dictator. […]

[Sherko] has a vague memory of the day of the uprising in front of the Red Prison. He remembers seeing a caravan full of colourful women’s clothes, contraceptive pills, and other objects. […] When he saw the caravan he was almost 11 years old. The event left its mark on him, and years later he decided to probe further into this story. Since 2008 Sherko has been searching for clues to help him get to the bottom of this mystery. The caravan could be seen in the courtyard of the prison for only a few days of the uprising. Afterwards, it disappeared without a trace; hardly a memory of it remains.

The Red Prison has now been turned into a museum […]. But the parties behind the transformation of the building were biased and they focused exclusively on the memories of the political prisoners belonging to their own parties. The entire history of the place’s female prisoners was erased. The plight of those women and the mystery of the caravan were ignored, included neither in the memory of the building nor in the commemorative TV shows. These women might have been raped, and the political establishment does not seem to be willing to confront it.

This issue has become a concern for Sherko, and he raises important questions as to why the rape of political prisoners should be treated with shame. Why are their sacrifices belittled and erased?

His experimental documentary, entitled “Paper Puppet Testimony”, recounts the stories of Kurdish women in the Red Prison. In his video, Sherko tries to bring their stories back into the realm of politics, art, and culture. He is interested in stories that are easily forgotten, and he wants to give them a platform to be narrated and incorporated into official memory.

excerpts from the essay Paper Puppet Testimony by Houzan Mahmoud, full version of the essay is available online at: http://sherkoabbas.com/?p=1238

Sherko Abbas is a Kurdish-Iraqi artist. Born in 1978 in Iran, where his family lived as refugees, Abbas came to Iraq when he was two years old. He graduated from the College of Fine Arts, University of Sulaimani (BA, 2005) and Goldsmiths, University of London (MFA Fine Art, 2015).

In his artistic practice Abbas uses video, performance, sculpture, text and sound. His work is dedicated to the sonic and visual memory as well as geopolitical situation of contemporary Iraq. He has participated in numerous exhibitions all over the world, including “Estrangement”, The Showroom, London (2010); “Vernacularity”, at the Alternativa International Contemporary Visual Art Festival in Gdańsk, Polan (2015); “Archaic”, the Iraq Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale (2017); “Bagdad mon amour”, Institut des Cultures d’Islam, Paris (2018); “Speaking Across Mountains”, Middle East Institute, Washington D.C. (2019); “Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin 2019”, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2019) and Louvre Auditorium, Paris (2020); “Theater of Operations. The Gulf Wars 1991–2011”, MoMA PS1, New York (2019/2020).

Abbas also works as a curator, organizer and coordinator of cultural events. He curated, inter alia, the project “Sermedy Le 437.072 sq km” (2007) and was the operation manager of the project “Post-war Culture in Iraq” (2010), both at the Amna Suraka Museum, Sulaimani. In 2017, in collaboration with the curator Aneta Szyłak, he researched and coordinated the project “In-between Worlds. Kurdish Contemporary Artists”, resulting in a collection of artworks from over 30 Kurdish-Iraqi artists and a book. The collection is now part of the Imago Mundi collection under the auspices of the Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche, Treviso, Italy.

In 2014 and 2015 at Goldsmiths, University of London, he initiated sound performances “When the Wild Instruments Sing”, using a “wild instrument” which he had made with his own hands. Participating in the performances were his sister Khabat Abas, improviser and cellist, and Hardi Kurda, improviser and composer (and in 2014 also Kani Kamil).

sherkoabbas.com

video, 2’50”

camera and editing: Saman Jalal performance by: July Adnan

The work is built on a tension between a girl’s subtle and delicate silhouette and a considerable burden strung on her hair, which she manages to lift. July appears in an empty fitness club, and her exercises create a strange formal dissonance in these predictable and obvious surroundings.

based on: sherkoabbas.com

Sherko Abbas is a Kurdish-Iraqi artist. Born in 1978 in Iran, where his family lived as refugees, Abbas came to Iraq when he was two years old. He graduated from the College of Fine Arts, University of Sulaimani (BA, 2005) and Goldsmiths, University of London (MFA Fine Art, 2015).

In his artistic practice Abbas uses video, performance, sculpture, text and sound. His work is dedicated to the sonic and visual memory as well as geopolitical situation of contemporary Iraq. He has participated in numerous exhibitions all over the world, including “Estrangement”, The Showroom, London (2010); “Vernacularity”, at the Alternativa International Contemporary Visual Art Festival in Gdańsk, Polan (2015); “Archaic”, the Iraq Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale (2017); “Bagdad mon amour”, Institut des Cultures d’Islam, Paris (2018); “Speaking Across Mountains”, Middle East Institute, Washington D.C. (2019); “Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin 2019”, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2019) and Louvre Auditorium, Paris (2020); “Theater of Operations. The Gulf Wars 1991–2011”, MoMA PS1, New York (2019/2020).

Abbas also works as a curator, organizer and coordinator of cultural events. He curated, inter alia, the project “Sermedy Le 437.072 sq km” (2007) and was the operation manager of the project “Post-war Culture in Iraq” (2010), both at the Amna Suraka Museum, Sulaimani. In 2017, in collaboration with the curator Aneta Szyłak, he researched and coordinated the project “In-between Worlds. Kurdish Contemporary Artists”, resulting in a collection of artworks from over 30 Kurdish-Iraqi artists and a book. The collection is now part of the Imago Mundi collection under the auspices of the Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche, Treviso, Italy.

In 2014 and 2015 at Goldsmiths, University of London, he initiated sound performances “When the Wild Instruments Sing”, using a “wild instrument” which he had made with his own hands. Participating in the performances were his sister Khabat Abas, improviser and cellist, and Hardi Kurda, improviser and composer (and in 2014 also Kani Kamil).

sherkoabbas.com

text-based video animation, 2’30” (loop)

The question raised by the Islamic-text-based work “Divine Text” has little to do with parsing religion and the visual thrill someone may experience on facing Islamic calligraphy. Instead, it deals with the hidden and unconcealed political meanings that reside in-between Islamic scripts. This artwork consists of camouflaged Islamic words and verses in the shape of animated tanks, rockets, military machines, and other tools of war. While Islamic calligraphy in itself is supposed to bestow aesthetic and spiritual pleasure, that is not what the artist represents. Based on the challenging history which the artist’s nation was subjected to by those who, seeing themselves as Khalifa of Allah, threaten and kill others, Baram believes that Islamic script has lost its real meaning and, nowadays, has more to do with threat rather than thrill.

In its visual aspect, the work captivates the viewer with a seductive pattern resembling beautiful lace, pulling us in closer through the monotony of its movement. However, the image is accompanied by a disturbing sound – rhythmic noises reminiscent of hitting a drum, the ticking of a clock mechanism and the clatter of a machine interweave with a monumental male voice chanting 99 Names of God (99 Attributes of Allah). The same names appear sequentially on the tank tracks visible on the left side of the frame.

In Baram’s animation, the moving text becomes a tool of propaganda, a perpetual motion machine showing the mutual relations between politics, threats, aggression, religious foundations, words and beauty.

based on the text and information provided by the artist

Born in 1983, Sulaimani, Iraq, Baram is a Kurdish artist, the founder of “Selfie-Based Documentary Project to Document and Interview Kurdish Artists”, author of critical articles about art, and an English to Kurdish translator. He is a graduate of the College of Fine Arts, University of Sulaimani, (2006–2009) where he works as a lecturer. He earned his Masters’ degree in Contemporary Art (2013–2014) from Middlesex University, London. Baram presented his art at group exhibitions, including “The Nest-builders of the Sea”, Art Lacuna Gallery, London (2014); “Primary Colours”, In the Grove Studio – MA Fine Art Degree Show, London (2014); “CB Student Award & Exhibition”, Collyer Bristow Gallery, London (2014); “Text Show”, Contemporary Art Museum, Sulaimani (2017); “Anthropologio”, Thissio Gallery space, Athens (2020) and at his solo exhibition “Catalyst Art Show”, Esta Gallery, Cultural Center of Sulaimani Old Tobacco Factory, Sulaimani (2018).

According to Baram, language can be seen as a controversial material for art making or as a visual device that embodies philosophical and political positions. He favors the latter approach. His text-based art can be understood as a conceptual practice that questions the use of written language within the context of contemporary art. Baram provokes debate by making use of diverse languages, such as Kurdish, Arabic, and English, as well as by using Islamic texts. Wider political and cultural concerns are inherent in the conceptual nature of his artistic practice. Visualising political issues takes precedence over the aesthetics of conceptual art, and this opposition between the political and the aesthetic becomes a source of productive tension.

The written word is usually considered to carry literal meaning, but Baram’s artistic practice transcends this function. It converts text into image and a set of coded representations conveying the complexities inherent in dealing with national identity.

based on information provided by the artist

object, casting obtained from melted war metal waste, rope, wooden construction 180 × 226 × 150 cm, about 300 kg

NAZHAD AND THE BELL PROJECT – two-channel video installation: “The Bell Project Iraq”, 2007–2015, video, 26’03”, “The Bell Project Italy”, 2007–2015, video, 35’43”

The work connects two places in all respects distant from each other – the wasteland in northern Iraq, and a church in Italy. Resulting is a bell cast from war metal waste. The creative process included preparing raw metal in Iraq, transporting it via land and sea to Italy, casting the bell in an Italian foundry, displaying the bell in a church and accompanying activities, such as lectures, performances and publication.

The project was inspired by the life story and activity of a Kurdish entrepreneur named Nazhad from a settlement south of Sulaimani, who turned his childhood passion for melting metal into a source of income. His business professionally recycles battlefield waste and makes metal ingots which are subsequently sold as production material all over the globe. Nazhad’s entreprise raises controversy, as the business that made him a rich man would not have been possible without the Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988) and both Gulf Wars (1991, 2003).

In the first video – “The Bell Project Iraq” – Nazhad gives us a tour of his work and his life. We become familiar with the breadth of his years’ long, practical expertise and knowledge of both the metal itself and the circulation of the original weapons from which it is obtained. In the video for “The Bell Project Italy” we observe the process of creating the first version of the bell, produced in an Italian foundry and later presented in the main exhibition of the 56th Venice Biennale (2015).

Białystok’s Arsenal Gallery presents the second version of the bell, cast in a Polish foundry from scrap metal obtained from the ammunition resources of the Polish army, which allows us to consider the issue of economic profit gained from arms production in the domestic context. For the first time the bell was shown in 2019 at the Zachęta – National Gallery of Art in Warsaw as part of Hiwa K’s individual exhibition “Highly Unlikely but not Impossible”.

History knows of cannons being made out of melted church bells in times of war, when access to bronze was limited. Hiwa K effected a reverse transformation: the metal used previously for making arms and weapons was given the form of a bell. The artist encourages the public to swing the bell, so that our physical effort translates itself into the expression of solemn sounds of present-day wars.

The Bell Project Italia (video)
The Bell Project Iraq (video)

based on: hiwak.net and zacheta.art.pl

Born in 1975, Sulaimani, Iraq, Hiwa K is a visual artist working and living in Berlin. Originally from Iraqi Kurdistan, he fled the country in 1996, eventually settling in Germany, where he obtained his formal education in visual arts. An accomplished flamenco guitarist, he studied under master Paco Peña and has continued his musical practice parallel to his work in the field of visual arts.

Hiwa K’s work has been shown in major group exhibitions such as La Triennale, “Intense Proximity”, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2012); 56th Biennale di Venezia (2015); and documenta 14, Athens and Kassel (2017). He took part in most editions of Alternativa International Contemporary Visual Art Festival in Gdańsk, Poland (2009–2016). His latest individual exhibitions are: “Don’t Shrink Me to the Size of a Bullet”, Kunst-Werke Berlin (2017); “Blind as the Mother Tongue”, New Museum, New York (2018); “Moon Calendar”, S.M.A.K., Ghent and Kunstverein Hannover (2018); “Highly Unlikely but not Impossible”, Zachęta – National Gallery of Art, Warsaw (2019).

Hiwa K has worked with curator Aneta Szyłak since 2005. In 2008, the duo initiated “Estrangement” – a series of workshops, explorations and discussions in Kurdistan, the outcomes of which were exhibited at The Showroom in London (2010) and at the Alternativa festival in Gdańsk (2011). The artist is a recipient of the Arnold-Bode-Prize 2016 of documenta-City Kassel (2016) and of Ernst Schering Preis (2017).

Hiwa K is an advocate of self-education, which he himself practises. He is critical of the art education system and the professionalization of art practice, as well as the myth of the individual artist. Consequently, many of his works are characterized by a strong collective and participatory dimension and an insistence on the concept of obtaining knowledge from everyday experience rather than doctrine. Hiwa K’s art escapes normative aesthetics and allows another vibration to vernacular forms, oral histories, interpersonal relations and political issues. He draws his references from stories told by family members and friends, found situations, and everyday forms produced by pragmatics and necessity.

hiwak.net

video (direct-to-camera performance), 4’31”

object accompanying the video work, wood (stick and bowl), metal, artist’s hair, 88 × 11 × 8 cm

I have made an object enabling me to make music with my own hair, to make a sound, sound art and experimental music engaged with gender and feminism. I use my own hair to “give voice” to the experience and culture surrounding Kurdish women.

The instrument is made out of objects used by women in our society in their daily work – a wooden stick, used for making Kurdish bread, and a bowl. These object’s shapes also have clear sexual overtones (as does the architectural form of the mosque).

The performance “Her Voice” has two aspects. One of them is the idea behind the work, expressed by experimental sound-making in protest against the patriarchy, depression and devaluation in my country – Iraq. The other is the function of the object: I use this bowl for ecological reasons. I place inside my single hair so as to make a sound with my fingers. If the hair breaks, I attach another one without tearing my hair out, in order to continue my performance.

Kani Kamil

based on: kanikamil.com

Born in Iraq, Kani Kamil is a Kurdish contemporary artist who lives and works in the United Kingdom. She is a graduate of College of Fine Arts, University of Sulaimani (BA, Fine Art / Ceramic, 2006) and Middlesex University, London (MA Fine Art, 2013). Currently she is a PhD candidate at Manchester Metropolitan University. She is a member of the Travelling Heritage Bureau in Manchester – a project ran by Digital Women’s Archive North (DWAN).

She participated in numerous projects and group exhibitions, including: “Woman Made Gallery’s 18th International Open”, Woman Made Gallery, Chicago (2015); “Arising”, Reykjavı́k Art Museum, Reykjavík, Iceland (2016); “Clamor”, Institute of Fine Art, Sulaimani (2016); “Slowness”, TRAFO, Trafostacja Sztuki w Szczecinie, Szczecin, Poland (2018); “Still I rise”, Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester (2018); “Cohere”, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and HOME Manchester (2019); Hull International Photography Festival, HIP Gallery, Hull, UK (2019); “Everyday Object”, in collaboration with the University of Huddersfield and University of Salford in Manchester, Kate Smith, and Kelly Lockwood, part of the conference “The Listening Guide in Feminist Narrative Research” (2019); “Speaking Across Mountains”, Middle East Institute, Washington D.C. (2019); “Pot-holder” (project commissioned by Kirklees Council), in cooperation with Women in Exile at Huddersfield and Dewsbury WomenCentres, UK (2020).

Kani Kamil’s work is a reflection on the socio-political circumstances of Kurdish women in Iraq. It protests the inequality of opportunity and represents the voices of the marginalised. Her works aim to expose the relationship between nature and culture as well as the social construction of gender. She makes photographs, installation, needle-work, video and sound art, and frequently uses her own hair as the material with which to articulate the notions of conflict and repression.

In 2014 at Goldsmiths, University of London, together with Hardi Kurda, improviser and composer, and Khabat Abas, improviser and cellist, she took part in Sherko Abbas’s sound performance “When the Wild Instruments Sing”, playing the daf drum.

kanikamil.com

video, 12’12”

In 2009, Shirwan Fatih collected old erasers from children in six different classes of different grades in an elementary school in Kurdistan. In exchange, he gave the pupils new erasers. The old ones were then sorted, class by class, and installed sequentially on a gallery floor, lined up from the first to the sixth year. As years progress, the use of the erasers is diminishing, as if the corrective impact of the educational system required schoolchildren to adapt to institutional demands. “Rubber” captures the struggle, on a material level, between demands and responses to them, between perfection and modality. It also reflects on what is missing, what never reached the eye as a possibility or opportunity that had no chance to develop a shape.

based on: Alternativa. Estrangement. Guidebook, Instytut Sztuki Wyspa, Gdańsk 2011 63

Born in 1974, Iraq, Shirwan Fatih lives and works in Sulaimani, Iraq. He belongs to a new wave of Sulaimani artists to produce site-specific art, installation, and video. He is also a painter and performance artist. Fatih focuses on environmental issues and political transformation as well as on the education system in Iraq. His artwork is created in close cooperation with schools and schoolchildren. Fatih’s art has been widely exhibited in Iraqi Kurdistan (e.g. in the group shows: “Sermedy Le 437.072 sq km”, Amna Suraka Museum, Sulaimani, 2007; “Dado Exhibition”, SARA building, Sulaimani, 2010; “Clamor”, Institute of Fine Art, Sulaimani, 2016; and “Me and City Hurt Each Other”, The English Hospital, Sulaimani, 2017) as well as in Norway and in Germany, where in 2007 he participated in the art residency programme at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig. He also took part in the project “Estrangement”, presented at The Showroom, London (2010) and at the Alternativa International Contemporary Visual Art Festival, Gdańsk (2011); and in the show “Videozoom: Kurdistan, Iraq. Small things that matter more”, Museo di Roma in Trastevere, Rome (2015).

video, 18’08”

“Tunning Body” is a direct-to-camera performance, during which the artist performs a dance with reed sticks of different lengths. On the one hand, it resembles martial arts training or even a war dance and, on the other, a form of movement therapy. Wild, intense, and free expression of the body conveys tensions, feelings and emotions that cannot be described in words, and result from past traumas and a life lived in a state of emergency and constant readiness. The sound dimension of the performance is disturbing too. Hollow reeds, used to make traditional Kurdish shimshal flutes, make a drawn-out, whistling, whizzing or even whipping noises. Sometimes the artist uses his instruments as drums, by striking a fast, nervous rhythm or by generating single beats. Hamarafiq builds a relationship between his body and architecture. The performance takes place in an empty hall of a post-industrial building formerly housing a Tobacco Factory in Sulaimani and nowadays serving as a cultural center. The work shows tension between violence, dance and sound. The body takes position among these complexities, reflecting the reality of Kurdish society in Iraq.

“Tunning Body” grew from an experiment with body and sound, devised for the exhibition “Clamor” at the Institute of Fine Art in Sulaimani (2016), where the work was shown as a video documentation of the actual performance. “For the first time I did the performance live and in front of an audience for the project Space21 [Sound Art Exhibition, Sulaimani and Erbil, 2018 – editor’s note]. This opens up possibilities for many other directions in which the work can develop. Simultaneously, it records layers of politics and history embedded in different locations,” Hamarafiq says.

based on: http://www.gulan.org.uk/portfolio-item/rebeen-hamarafiq/ and https://space21.nu/?page_id=335

Born in Sulaimani, Iraq, Hamarafiq is a Kurdish-Iraqi artist, curator and researcher. He graduated from the College of Fine Arts, University of Sulaimani (BA in painting) and Goldsmiths, University of London (MFA Fine Art and Graduate Diploma in Creative & Cultural Industries).

Hamarafiq has exhibited nationally and internationally, including venues such as: The Showroom, London; Alternativa International Contemporary Visual Art Festival, Gdańsk; CalArts, Los Angeles; and Museo di Roma in Trastevere, Rome. He won the Spotlight Iraq 2019 grant from Goethe-Institut Irak for the project “Are We Addicted?” and an artistic residence from Live Art and Artsadmin, London. The projects he has curated include: “Dado Exhibition”, SARA building, Sulaimani (2010); “Videozoom: Kurdistan, Iraq. Small things that matter more”, Museo di Roma in Trastevere, Rome (2015); and the one-year project “Are We Addicted?” at the Cultural Center of Sulaimani Old Tobacco Factory, Sulaimani (2019/2020).

Hamarafiq’s work focuses on the relations between daily living and art, social constructions of power and meaning, physical reactions to norms and modern living, as well as the reconstruction of the Iraqi society after its random destruction by wars and rapid changes following the collapse of Saddam’s regime. The artist fights stereotypical imagery of Iraq abroad, promoting and supporting local views instead. He believes that exhibitions and cultural events should present critical points of view. Hamarafiq publishes articles on visual culture in local magazines. In his 2019 essay, published in “Genocide Studies International” (University of Toronto Press), he analyses the ways Kurdish authorities used the images of massacres committed during the Al-Anfal campaign, in (among others) Halabja, in the broadcasts aired by the first, government-controlled television station after the Kurdish uprising of 1991.

based on information provided by the artist

video, 8’38”

“Dropping” is a direct-to-camera performance by Rebeen Hamarafiq. Drops of milk fall at regular intervals onto the naked head of the artist filmed against a black background. Within a few minutes a small puddle of milk is formed on the top of the artist’s skull, and a thin trickle runs down his weary face. What we see is an obvious reference to the so-called Chinese water torture, in which cold water is slowly dripped onto the victim’s head. Seemingly mild and “humane”, deprived of spectacular violence and blood-shed, it is in reality painful, mentally debilitating and considered one of the most effective.

At the Arsenal Gallery power station, Hamarafiq’s video is installed in a space below the level of the exhibition – the basement area symbolizing a torture chamber or prison, but also the humiliation of the victims of the abuse. The theme of torture often appears in the works of Kurdish artists, which has an obvious connection with the history of their nation and the painful experiences of their families and friends.

The motif of dripping milk also refers to Hamarafiq’s experience of fatherhood. The artist looked after his newborn daughter while his wife was working toward her university degree. Attempting to cope with a new situation, weary with the day-to-day monotony and challenges, the artist was also haunted by fear for his daughter’s future. It stemmed from, on the one hand, the artist’s memories of his own difficult childhood in Kurdistan under Saddam Hussein and, on the other, his desire to protect his daughter from experienced by Kurdish women sense of being unable to break through limiting social, religious and cultural circumstances.

Born in Sulaimani, Iraq, Hamarafiq is a Kurdish-Iraqi artist, curator and researcher. He graduated from the College of Fine Arts, University of Sulaimani (BA in painting) and Goldsmiths, University of London (MFA Fine Art and Graduate Diploma in Creative & Cultural Industries).

Hamarafiq has exhibited nationally and internationally, including venues such as: The Showroom, London; Alternativa International Contemporary Visual Art Festival, Gdańsk; CalArts, Los Angeles; and Museo di Roma in Trastevere, Rome. He won the Spotlight Iraq 2019 grant from Goethe-Institut Irak for the project “Are We Addicted?” and an artistic residence from Live Art and Artsadmin, London. The projects he has curated include: “Dado Exhibition”, SARA building, Sulaimani (2010); “Videozoom: Kurdistan, Iraq. Small things that matter more”, Museo di Roma in Trastevere, Rome (2015); and the one-year project “Are We Addicted?” at the Cultural Center of Sulaimani Old Tobacco Factory, Sulaimani (2019/2020).

Hamarafiq’s work focuses on the relations between daily living and art, social constructions of power and meaning, physical reactions to norms and modern living, as well as the reconstruction of the Iraqi society after its random destruction by wars and rapid changes following the collapse of Saddam’s regime. The artist fights stereotypical imagery of Iraq abroad, promoting and supporting local views instead. He believes that exhibitions and cultural events should present critical points of view. Hamarafiq publishes articles on visual culture in local magazines. In his 2019 essay, published in “Genocide Studies International” (University of Toronto Press), he analyses the ways Kurdish authorities used the images of massacres committed during the Al-Anfal campaign, in (among others) Halabja, in the broadcasts aired by the first, government-controlled television station after the Kurdish uprising of 1991.

based on information provided by the artist

video, 2’46”

The video piece “I Am Similar to My Father” was the final project of Rozhgar Mustafa’s graduate studies at the Chelsea College of Arts in London. It includes nine headshots of the artist, speaking, laughing, crying and gesticulating. Initially calm and serene, the video becomes increasingly noisy and dark. Multiplied voices overlap, creating an unintelligible cacophony. Through conventional English phrases: “flower, nice flower”, “I’m quite similar to my father”, “nice to meet you”, “I’m good”, one can hear, spoken with increasing tension, until the final tears in the eyes: “I was just fourteen!” and “she was just seven- teen!”. The video, with a clearly feminist meaning, addresses domestic violence against girls and women, and the issue of honour killings in the Kurdistan region and in Iraq as a whole – both sanctioned by tradition and custom.

In 2016, in the traditional Shaab Teahouse in Sulaimani, known as an informal centre of intellectual and cultural life, Rozhgar presented two works tackling violence against women. The videos screened were “I Am Similar to My Father” and “Baqwrbantm” [I Sacrifice Myself for You]. The latter video features a headline from a Kurdish newspaper reporting the murder of an anonymous woman. The presentation was accompanied by the artist’s meeting with a nearly exclusively male audience. Mustafa recalls: “Most of the people who come to the teahouse are unaccustomed to video art and performance pieces. So as well as discussing issues affecting women in the Kurdistan region and in Iraq, my works were introducing a new kind of artistic experience, that challenges the daily habits of the teahouse.”

based on: Plastic Women and Teahouses: interview with the artist Rozhgar Mustafa, https://ruyafoundation.org/en/2016/12/4123/

A Kurdish contemporary artist, Rozhgar Mustafa lives and works in Sulaimani, Kurdistan, Iraq. A graduate of College of Fine Arts, University of Sulaimani (BA in painting, 2004), between 2012–2013 she studied at Chelsea College of Arts, University of the Arts London, where she earned an MFA degree. She teaches art at the Institute of Fine Art in Sulaimani. In 2013 in London she was shortlisted by ArtRaker Fund as one of the 20 best artists who work with the subjects of conflict and war.

Mustafa works with different media, including installation, photography, video and public live action. Her main interests include issues of transformation, conflict and gender identity, memory, contradiction, trauma and fear.

In 2009 she was artist-in-residence at the Wyspa Institute of Art in Gdańsk, Poland, on a grant from the Gdańsk Exclusive programme, where she also held a solo exhibition “New Works”. She took part in projects locally and internationally, dealing with the subject of women in public space, art and politics, society and taboo, and corruption. Particularly worth mentioning are: “Sermedy Le 437.072 sq km”, Amna Suraka Museum, Sulaimani (2007); “Dado Exhibition”, SARA building, Sulaimani (2010); “Contemporary Art Irak”, Cornerhouse, Manchester (2010); “Estrangement”, The Showroom, London (2010); “Plastic Women”, solo street action, Sulaimani (2011); “Freedom on the Barricades?”, Växjö Konsthall, Växjö, Sweden (2014); “Videozoom: Kurdistan, Iraq. Small things that matter more”, Museo di Roma in Trastevere, Rome (2015); Alternativa International Contemporary Visual Art Festival in Gdańsk (2011, 2016); “Me and City Hurt Each Other”, The English Hospital, Sulaimani (2017); and „Road through Kurdistan”, P21 Gallery, Kings Cross, London (2019).

In 2020 Mustafa took part in a research art project with the Iraqi artist Hanna Malallah and a group of other female artists, aiming to explore Iraq’s ancient Mesopotamian sites and re-contextualise their history through contemporary art practices. The project resulted in the virtual group exhibition “Co-Existent Ruins: Exploring Iraq’s Mesopotamian Past Through Contemporary Art”, Brunei Gallery, SOAS University of London (2020).

rozhgarmustafa.com

installation, xps, wood, 4.5 × 13 × 5 m, 100 kg

Walid Siti’s installation references mountains as an important element of the geographical and political landscape of both Iraq and Kurdistan. The area inhabited by Kurds, which they see as their imagined autonomous state, is currently divided between four countries – Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. In the past, the mountains were also divided into separate territories controlled by warring Kurdish guerillas, they delineated conflict areas, and witnessed fratricidal fights, including those between the supporters of Masud Barzani and the allies of Jalal Talabani.

“Constructing Mountain II” is a mountain outline cut out of thick board and supported on both sides by an aggressive structure, a kind of irregular lattice constructed out of wooden slats. It symbolizes the above mentioned divisions and the impossibility of bringing about a unity of interests, language and political agenda. It also shows a complicated network of forces pressing upon Kurdistan or, more broadly, Iraq. The form of the artwork itself brings to mind building solutions used on local construction sites – erecting formwork or scaffoldings out of shabby poles and sticks, doomed to destruction or liquidation, and evoking general impermanence.

“Mountains are metaphorical threads connecting memories to physical forms thus consolidating what in my practice is imaginary. The motif weaves in and out of my work, serving as a medium enabling me to deal with social, political and cultural issues. Constructing Mountain II, 2020 is drawn from memory pared down to its essence, so that it can be used as a means of projecting an idea of a world in a constant state of change. The work conveys the concept of a shift from a former position of a monumental physical shape to a complex visual contemporary form, with the ensuing transformation from order to disorder and vice versa. The process is a metaphor for life itself, moving from the violence of birth to the struggle for existence to the final monumental transformation amidst a fragile and troubled land- scape,” the artist writes.

Born in 1954, Duhok (a city in Iraqi Kurdistan), Iraq, Walid Siti graduated from the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad in 1976, then left Iraq to continue his artistic education in Ljubljana, Slovenia and in 1984 sought political asylum in the United Kingdom, where he now lives and works.

Siti’s work has been exhibited internationally, inter alia at Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin; Imperial War Museum, London; Institut des Cultures d’Islam, Paris; Sharjah Biennial, United Arab Emirates, where he was awarded a prize; Venice Biennale (2009, 2011, 2015); Yinchuan Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), China; the International Centre of Graphics, Ljubljana (exhibition “Systems and Patterns”); and the Bruges Triennial, Belgium.

Siti works in a variety of media, including installation, 3D works, video, artwork on paper, and painting. His works traverses a complex terrain of memory and loss, simultaneously presenting an acute insight into the world which is for him a place of constant change. The artist shares the story of his experiences, of a life lived far from, but deeply emotionally connected to the place of one’s birth, with many other exiles. He draws inspiration from the cultural heritage of his native land, crisscrossed with militarized borders and waves of migration. In his work Siti examines the tensions between collective identity, interdependence, and the constraints placed on the individual by their heritage, tradition, homes, borders, mobility and migration.

His work is featured in notable international collections such as the Metropolitan Museum, New York; The British Museum, London; Imperial War Museum, London; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah; The National Gallery of Amman, Jordan; The World Bank, Washington, D.C.; Iraq Memory Foundation, Art for American Embassy program, USA; MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow, Poland; and Barjeel Art Foundation in Sharjah.

walidsiti.com

9 drawings, pencil and ink on cigar paper, 19 × 17.5 cm (frames: 27.5 × 27.5 × 1.5 cm)

collection of S.M.A.K., the Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art in Ghent, Belgium

In 2008 Sakar Sleman exhibited a series of drawings about childbirth at the Sardam Gallery in Sulaimani. Some of them were presented later in the “Archaic” show at the 57th Venice Biennale’s Iraq Pavilion (2017). As written by the art historian Kalliopi Minoudaki for the “Archaic” catalogue, these intimate and visceral drawings express the “trauma of childbirth” with a “rudimentary language of the body.” The artist used “a vocabulary of perfect and imperfect circles” to highlight “bodily estrangement, duplication and rupture.” The physical trauma that women undergo during childbirth is not easily talked about in Kurdistan. Nonetheless “it was clear to everyone what the works were about,”, says Sleman, “even my friends who weren’t artists understood them and empathised.”

Especially for the Venice Biennale Sleman produced a new work (untitled, known as “Land Art”, 2017). Using soil and stone from the Kurdish mountains near her home she created a subjective diorama of the world (which was also a model of the untitled/“Land Art” installation from 2014, originally a white, circle- shaped form made of stone and ground chalk, 17 metres across, located on a mountainside near Sulaimani). It was supposed to serve as a meditation on nature as the origin of mankind and the artist’s relationship to it. The installation was accompanied by the series of 9 untitled drawings (2017) which are presented in the exhibition “May Flames Pave the Way for You” at the Arsenal Gallery power station in Białystok. Their abstractness, seen in recurring references to the circular shape, is linked to Sleman’s preoccupation with women and their unheard voices in society.

based on: ruyafoundation.org/en/, passim

Born in 1979, Sulaimani, Iraq, Sakar Sleman is a Kurdish contemporary artist involved, among others, in painting, installation and land art. She lives and works in Sulaimani. Her work focuses on political, religious and day-to-day issues in Iraqi society and, in particular, on problems faced by women.

Many of Sleman’s installations are site-specific, such as her land art project on the slopes of Goyzha and Azmar mountains above Sulaimani (untitled, known as “Land Art”, 2014) and the exhibition “Two Generations” in the yard of the Amna Suraka Museum in Sulaimani.

Sleman has worked on projects in refugee and IDP camps in northern Iraq. Her installation “Mass Migrations” (2013), made in collaboration with Syrian refugees from the Arbat camp, was first exhibited in the camp, and later transferred to the Sardam Gallery in Sulaimani. Her work with internally displaced Yezidi women resulted in the installation “Yezidi Women” (2015), exhibited on International Women’s Day in a public square in downtown Sulaimani to commemorate Yezidi women who were killed or sexually abused by ISIS.

The artist often uses texts and short slogans combined with installation and found objects. In the installation “Read” (2016), Sleman used books to explore the role of religion and plurality in Iraq in the period of religious fanaticism.

Sleman also creates small objects, drawings, paintings and installations using organic materials such as coal, earth, wood, gypsum and stone. In doing so, the artist uses shape, colour, texture and smell to create work that is deeply introspective, drawing on her personal experiences and collective memory. The latter is well illustrated by her exhibition “Dark and Light” (2017) at the Amna Suraka Museum.

She was one of the eight Iraqi artists presented at the “Archaic” exhibition in the Iraq Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale (2017).

based on: ruyafoundation.org/en/, passim