dado exhibition

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dadoExhibition

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Hall Mnagement

Rozhgar MahmoodShemeran MuhamadMohammad NakamYadgar AbubakirBitwen Ali

Helping in workplanZana Rasul

DesignRebeen Majeed

TranslationKarwan Eskeire

Kurdish Language chekMuhamad Abdullah

Special thanks to:

Sulaymaniyah Directory of archaeology The renovation staff of Sulaymaniyah SARA BuildingTOSHIBA Company

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DadoExhibition for 20 artists

Curator Rebeen Majeed

Artists

Namiq HamaNahro ShawqiJamal PenjwenyZana RasulHemn HameedSherwan FatehHero AbdulrahmanGeylan Abdullah Soran RafaatSherko AbasRozhgar MahmoodYadgar Abubakir Julie AdnanMohammad NakamSakar FarooqBitwen AliAryan Abubakir Shemeran MuhamadSakar AbdullahRebeen Majeed

Directory of Plastic ArtI:Sulaymaniyah

Sulaymaniyah SARA buildingfrom: 17 - 19 / March / 2010

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Dado Exhibition

The makeup of society and the reaction of humans to their surroundings and with the ‘new’ is worthy of scrutiny, especially the ‘new’ because with the ‘new’ there is an element of the unknown which is filled by human imagination.

Kurdish and Eastern society is going through a special period due to the information revolution, the vast media and unparalleled production. Humans cannot absorb and properly used everything they see and come across on a daily basis. For example, if someone hears something about nanotechnology for the first time, everything about the topic is novel to him. It confuses him. He then relates the information to someone else who is also unfamiliar with the topic. In this way, a whole range of related information emerges, each of which contains elements of imagination and new stories. Or when our mothers or any other person around us see a new product in their homes, they think of the uses they could put the product to. We have seen many such examples. For instance, the use of CD covers as seed containers or bombs as house foundations. Each of these products relates the imagination and creativity of people. What is important to me is that imagination and that changing of the uses of material and information in daily life. It is also important to do this project at this time, when this society is going through a fundamental change away from a closed system through a rapid opening towards the outside world, even though it has not yet escaped the influence of the closed system and hasn’t yet entered an open state. It is in a state when everything is still new to it. This state of fundamental change is a temporary one- it neither has existed in the past nor will it exist in the future.

The installation is made up of a range of different works. The project started as a single person concept and was later expanded into a joint project. It contains various works that arose out of discussions between our artist friends. Some of the works were concepts only and were finished during the exhibition. All of them were shown in the exhibition on 17 March 2010.

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Why the Sulaimany Sera building?

The Sera building was crucial to the project because this building has the history of Sulaimany city over it – both from a historical perspective this being the oldest official building and also because the building’s role has changed many times in the history of the city.

Now, efforts are being made to again clean the building, return it to its original form, and prepare it for a new role as the museum of Sulaimany city. The building has assisted the project in various ways.

During the exhibition, no official government work was being done in the building. It is a special time between the building’s government role and its new role as a museum. The walls had been stripped of all official artefacts, so they did not distract the artists or other people. Also, the building is in the heart of the city and in the middle of the city’s life and activity and it is within everyone’s easy reach. Many people may end up in the exhibition unintentionally.

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The name of the project

In the beginning, the concept for this project was introduced to others under the name ‘transform’. But that name had a few problems, such as the fact that the name was very generic and took you to a lot of other places. We looked for a replacement name for some time with no avail. Also, the project was not created on a theoretic basis. No work was made to find a theoretical basis for it. Instead, it was a search through several trends and efforts. I wanted the name of the project to emerge as a result of thinking within the project. A dictionary name would have taken away from the specificity of the project. For that reason, when searching for a local name or a name that has arisen from within the project, my attention was drawn to the textual work of Sherko Abbas. Its name reflects the concept of the project in many ways. In one way, the project arose from the observation as to how in these new countries, because of the lack of information, often products or other things are used in different ways. These different uses define the culture and personality of the individuals. We can in this way study culture and the conduct of individuals.

This to me was not a negative situation. Sherko’s work got closer to this in that as a child, Sherko used to use the word ‘dado’ to describe and name everything. In this way, Sherko prides himself with his ability as a child to reduce everything in the world to a single word and at the same time, can describe everything with a single word. We never criticise children when they do this but we are amazed by it.

We didn’t want to lose this amazement in our project towards that delicate stage in which society because of its lack of understanding of certain things around it, uses them in its own way.

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Artworks

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Namiq Hama

A clearly injured person and an unclear feeling; the first point of difference between them in an unpopular form. When I saw that a flower had been grown outside a Halabjaian home, it was being used as a flower pot. In a different part of town, it was being used as a bathroom bucket. At that moment I thought that I should work on it but I wanted to work on it on the basis that it was a remnant of war.

I wanted to rely on a historic viewpoint on war – from the first bloodshed to genocide. This was a window through which I could set out my idea. The first bloodshed from a stone, then with human development, changes took place in the mechanism of killing. Although, in some places, the weapons were decorated for show.

This is a very complex beginning for humans as warlike and as killers. This sort of feeling was at first unclear, but when desires surface and start to control humans, pleasure from killing increased until it took us to genocide.

I collected these rockets. This is what I could find. Some of them were being sold for the metal. They were being exported to Iran. I worked on it as that remnant of war, as a history of that city.

I worked on them at my home and used to sleep and eat beside them. Others would caution me a lot that I shouldn’t touch them because they had chemical remnants of on it and that it might be harmful. But I insisted on working on them until I finished. I started in 1997 and finished in 1999 when I exhibited the work on Salim Street.

Namiq Hama

the work consists of 4 bomb cases from the Halabja bombings, which have been drawn on by the artist.

Installation. 2010. Place: Sara building photo: Hemn Hameed

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Nahro Shawqi

The nature of the material directly determines the fantasy of invention, in a way that invention is dependent on the nature of the material used.

The type, colour and shape of material and the mental effect it has on humans can be used as a concept for initiating fantasy.

There are many factors and stimulators that could make this process happen, the most important of which is necessity. The need to obtain the day to day needs of life leads humans to strive to create something from nothing. As has been said, necessity is the mother of invention! We have many examples for this truism in environments where the procurement of daily necessities is not easy. In addition to necessity, the other factor behind this drive is human curiosity for experimenting with new materials and goods, regardless of the quality and type of the goods. Through globalisation, we have been redefined as mere consumers in a single market for goods, which are no more than a heavy load on the environment. Our redefinition as a consumer society will have the most negative effect on us, this by eliminating imagination for creation and taking us away from the value of material and its recycling. For that reason, it is important to raise this question. Do people in the different societies in general, and different people in a single society in particular, treat and

value material in the same way? How related is humans’ treatment of material with their awareness?

The value of material is less in consumer societies than in poorer ones. Proof for this is the longevity of material in use and its recycling, before it is finally destroyed. For instance, a pair of trousers may in a poorer society be reused in other forms once it has stopped being used as trousers. It may be made into cushions or other household items. Here the change in the form of the trousers grants them a new identity.

What we intend to address here is the environment, which is changing rapidly. If we do not stop every now and then and give serious consideration to its trends, then the storm of globalisation will overrun us and take us to wherever it wishes.

Fortunately, there are many live examples of treatment of material here, which can be seen and felt clearly, such as the difference between the treatment of material between city dwellers and those living in the countryside – or to generalise further, we could say those in a consumer society and those in a poor one. The latter community is always at peace with material, even when the material has been sent for its destruction or the pollution of its environment. That’s why producing and consumer societies have gained more awareness of the need to recycle material in order to save themself from sinking under the heavy weight of material which is threatening

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the environment. They try to go back to a basic way of life. From here on, we see the difference between the two types of society- the first one recycles material because of need and curiosity for experimentation with new things; the second one is a conscious effort to save the eco system from its heavy load.

Nahro Shawqi

the work consisted of 3 photos, two of which are photos of a house in which remnants of a bomb have been used to support the house. The third photo is that of a group of children whose school bags have been made of mild bags.

Photo. Nahro Shawqy 2007. Place

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Jamal Penjweny

the work consists of 6 photos of places which were symbols of terror and intimidation during Saddam’s rule. But now things are different and many other people have worked andplayed with the symbols.

Photo: Jamal Penjweny 2009 . Place: Baghdad

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Photo: Jamal Penjweny 2009. Place: Baghdad

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Zana Rasul

This art installation (banner and cotton cushion) is one of the many banners which my aunt (Aunt Saeed) has given different forms and roles.

The changes she has made, had they been made to anything other than banners, they may have lost the identity of the first form and adopt the identity of the second form. But when the changes are to a banner of the Baath party and a quote of Saddam Hussein, we cannot see the second form (cotton cushion) without thinking about the first form (the banner). The writing on the banner or the cotton cushion is a saying of Saddam Hussein (‘our armed forces are protectors of the people and a shield for Iraq). The banner

was hanged on the wall of a petrol station outside the current Sulaimanya Public Library in 1982. Subsequently, it was removed by my aunt’s husband (Omar Abdulrahman) and my aunt turned it into a cushion cover.

Zana Rasul

the work was made up of a mattress, the cover of which was made from a banner from the era of the Baath Party regime. It also included a video interview on the history of the mattress cover.

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Video Installation. 2010. SARA Building. Photo: Rozhgar Mahmood

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Hemn Hameed

the work comprised of 12 photos and a map of Irbil city on which the Badawa suburb has been indicated with pen. It also includes five interviews with six people whose photos and the photos of whose houses were shown in the photos.

Photo Installation. 2010. SARA Building. Photo: Krmanj

Hemn Hameed

artistic project on Badawa neighborhoodthis neighborhood was a village behind Erbil but when the city expanded this become a part of the city but still with quality of a village from design and the nature of people.the alleys and the house were compassed in a way very different from the rest of the city, the design of the city and the way it located and the nature of the place made the social relation and the culture remains

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12 Photos. 2010. Badawa Erbil. Photos: Hemn Hameed

from village time, this strong culture background from village made a special district inside a city with same principle of a village with the same road, paths, the combination of houses. but finally this district have to deal with globalization and economical growth and new technology and increasing of the population of cities, building become higher and higher and more markets start to appear and slowly with the change that made to the Erbil›s Master plan most of the houses on 100m road melt dawn instead of them markets shops and other buildings were made.

the mater is a village become a district in a city with same design again with the same principle houses become markets and shops on the same structure, many other districts in Erbil when they used for the governments projects pupils were removed and they have another place instead in other part of the city, but this district doesn›t have any place in the city plane it have two faces one toward city another face remains as the village which originally designed on.in this project I will show some of the houses that destroyed to become

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shops, apartments and modern markets, my project is on how a neighborhood transform from a place to live in to markets and shops, this is the city›s power that changes everything from culture, tradition and social relations.a part of my project was to make interview with the pupils who lives on 100m road, they lived here from the early years of the place and who intend to sell their house.

Xhalel Ommar: i live in Badawa from 1982 I had a house, I sold it and don›t know what they intend to do with it I sold the house, and rented my small shop from them to sell vegetable until they will

start their project on it.Jameel Badee Omar: I come here to this district after 1985 after burning villages in ( Khoshnawaty valley ) I am now Imam of the Hajji Murads Mosque, my house is between two apartment they were both my neighbor and we were so close together but they sold their house, I can›t live here anymore either I will make it a supermarket or an apartment myself or I will sell it. in this district I was known to the most of the people, I can›t Imagine my life in other neighborhood.Rahman Hama Kareem: my house is 200M square if I want to sell it I have to buy 100M square in other new districts

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and Build my house on it again, my recent place is on the main street if someone interested I will sell it if not I will make something on it, deferent clans live here like Xeilany, Khoshnaw, Swrchy, Mantek and some Dome. We live here for 28 years I am so sad that I have to leave it but I have to.Hajey Mussa: from the time were Badawa were Village, my grandfather Mullah Effendi come here from Khoshanwaty valley, cines him we live here most of the lands of the new District was our land, I remember clearly how this village become a district.

Saeed Hamarash: I live here for a long time before. many of my friend were sold their house and leaved the place, all gone to deferent part and we do not know anything about each other, the old things are vanishing, the world is changing, when we come here building house were so simple, I remember how after Anfals many people comes from Kowya and Khoshanwaty valley and other places and build this place the way it is now.

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Sherwan Fatehthe work comprises a bottle of blood which has been filled with oil (crude petroleum) which drips slowly into a bucket.

Installation. 2010. Sara building. Photo: Betwen Ali

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Hero Abdulrahmanthe work consists of 2 canvases measuring 132x132 cm. Headlines of several local newspapers published in the three months leading up to the 25 July 2009 elections have been collaged on one of the canvases. On the other, there are headlines from the three months following the same elections.

Before and After election. Collage. 2010. Sara building. Photo: Aram Essa

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Befor election. Collage. 2010. Sara building. Photo: Rozhgar Mahmood

After election. Collage. 2010. Sara building. Photo: Rozhgar Mahmood

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Video. 2010. Sara building. Photo: Rozhgar Mahmood

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Geylan Abdullah this work was performed in Irbil on 11 September 2009 at the (Shesty) square. About 25 to 30 people went onto the middle of the street together and formed a circle for 15 minutes and changed the traffic route. The video of the performance is presented in the exhibition.

photos of the performance. 2009. Shesty street. Photos: Rebeen Majeed

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Soran Rafaat

When a specified space changes its role, for instance, from a space for settlement to one for work. This change initiates an unravelling of the system – a system in which space is important. For instance, the system in which city plans are created. At that instance, connections change their route from private space to public space.

A building is built initially as a place of settlement. For some reason, it changes its use from settlement to a government organisation. Thus it changes the connection between humans and the place, the link between place and architecture, and between architecture and the public environment. All of the above determine the city plan.

I want to say that generally, human connections including social, psychological, political and individual connections are affected by this.

Here, all the connections get a new identity and a novel form. For example, when a bedroom is changed to a government organisation in which cultural decisions are made.

For that reason, in this artistic work, my intention is to create illusions and to alert those who work there that if the room were changed back to its original use, there would be a return to perception.

Soran Rafaat

the work was created on 15 September 2009 in the building which houses the Sulaimany publishing and printing bureau. The building was previously a normal residential building and now houses a government body. The work consisted of converting the accounting room, being the busiest room in the building, into a bedroom, whilst the civil servants continued to perform their normal work in it and in the show we printed the picture of the room with the sound recorded in that day.

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Photo and sound installation. 2010. Sara building. Photo: Rozhgar Mahmood

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The room befor the Event. 2009. Directory of Press and Publishing, Sulaymanyiah . Photo: Rebeen Majeed


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Sherko Abas

Sherwal (Kurdish trousers): the work consists of a video on a popular Kurdish habit.

Video installation. 2010. Sara building. Photo: Betwen Ali

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Performance: Yadgar Abubakir. 2008. Kany sard. Capture from video

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ZhiniaJinia wrote me a few letters. Three years earlier, a writing of Kana had been written with the same form of expression. She had not learned how to write then but used to fill her writings in a short time, and it looked as if it was writing. She had seen them as a picture. So it was easier for her to write the letters in her own pictures. Jinia is 5 years old. When she gave me that letter, I immediately remembered Kana’s writings. Jinia mixes her pictures and writings. She often writes me letters in her picture writing and tells me ‘I have written this’.

Pictures in the drawing of lines and writings which are full of expression without having a single word in them. Following its control by the laws of writing and grammar, the picture of writing adopts a uniform rhythm. That’s why, all of Jinia’s thoughts will become the same rule for only one word, which must be written in accordance with one form of grammar. But now, she writes one word in different pictures. The word takes many forms which are not in the laws of grammar and are not controlled. Only she pictures them. She loves the word and repeats it in many pictorial forms.

In the world prior to the teaching of writing and form, only she is the owner of those words and letters. She writes many words which only she can recognise and understand and which are far from

the form found in writing. Once they are systematised, the pictures change and adapt to the common rules of writing, without which they cannot be considered writing.

Although, all of Jinia’s writings have name and meaning.

Rozhgar Mahmood

Rozhgar Mahmood

the work is made up of 8 names, which have been written out by Jinia, who has not yet entered school and is not yet literate.

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Zhinia. installation. 2010. Sara building. Photo: Rozhgar Mahmood

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Lwla. Zhinia. 2010. Sara building.

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Lwla. Zhinia. 2010. Sara building.

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Sherko Abbas

Dado consists of a text on the word ‘dado’. The same word has been used as the title of the exhibition.

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Dado Dado is a few letters altogether, which does not exist in the

Kurdish dictionary and has no meaning. The word doesn’t exist in

the Arabic and Persian dictionaries either. It is the first word I used

as a one year old but even for me, it didn’t have a specific meaning.

I called everything ‘dado’. It wasn’t even just the name of things.

Sometimes, it was at times the name of a demand, an expression of

happiness or of pain and frustration. I only know ‘dado’. My family

started calling me ‘dado’. They used to say ‘dado is hungry’, ‘dado

is angry’, ‘dado is asleep’. In 1975, after the defeat of the 1974

movement, my father (who hadn’t married then) went to Iran and

settled in Asfahan. In the same year, my mother’s family settled

in Mashahir city, for the same reason. In 1976, the two married

and in 1978, I was born. We lived in Mashahir then. Soon, in 1979,

the Shah of Iran fell and demonstrations took place all over Iran,

including our city. My parents also joined the demonstrations due

to our neighbours who were Iranian. I was one year old then. I was

sitting on my mother’s shoulder in the demonstrations. They were

shouting ‘death to the Shah’ and I was shouting ‘da da do’. Now,

‘sherko dado’ is only my email address.

Sherko Abbas

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Yadgar Abubakir

the work consisted of a glass box containing a number of burnt books. The books are from the national curriculum which are no longer in use. They are burnt in bookshops and never used again.

installation. 2010. Sara building. Photo: Rozhgar Mahmood

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Julie Adnan

the work consists of 14 pictures of different chairs, ranging from the chair of the Iranian President to the chairs used in Iraqi government meetings, to the chair of a shoe polisher to many other chairs. In the building, there remains an old chair. We have exhibited the photos in the room in which the chair was left.

Julie Adnan. 2008. Baghdad.




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Photo installation. 2010. Sara building. Photo: Rozhgar Mahmood

Julie Adnan. 2008. Baghdad. Julie Adnan. 2008. Sulaymanyiah.

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Julie Adnan. 2008. Ki ruk.

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Julie Adnan. 2008. Iran. Julie Adnan. 2008. Sulaymanyiah.

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Mohammad Nakamthe story of Manolina written in his own handwriting on two boxes measuring 70x100 cm. It was being read for the first time.

2010. Sara building. Photo: Betwen Ali

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ManolinaI was born in a beautiful way from a toy factory in the year of the raining of the

tadpoles three days after they clothed me with a pink wide-necked stretchy t-shirt

and a pair of light pink and bluish purple three quarter trousers they put me in a clear

box I was standing straight and amazedly looking out of the box my late left hand was

loosely hanging I had put my right hand which I am now just about able to write with

on the left side of my chest I have long light brown hair which they have braided for

me like a basket I have a pair of narrow and long light blue eyes my eyelids have a

reddish purple line on them and my cheeks are light pink my nose has flattened a bit

because I have fallen so much I have full rich red lips my hobby is to see the moon

whether full or half alone or with stars around it in pictures or in real anyway after six

days I was transferred to a toy shop in a city where instead of tadpoles butterflies rain

every day to night I kept watching the collision and falling of those tiny butterflies on

the other side of the glass façade of the shop but before long they put a glass-eyed

dog in front of me since then every day and night I kept staring at the reflection of my

own beauty in one of the dog’s eyes and deep in my heart I felt jealous of its other

big eye as he could see a larger number of the raining butterflies more clearly one

day I was thinking about what I could do to be able to touch the soft and beautiful

white hair of the dog when a hyper and naughty child stopped in front of me and as

if trying to frighten me started pulling faces at me and sticking his tongue out I wasn’t

very focused when he blew at me and I started shaking I tried to keep my balance

and not fall but the child poked me and I fell on my back with a bang I was then for

the first time taken out of the box in that child’s toy room I started moving about at

the time I was looked after very well and respected when she used to come to me

she would first kiss me and comb my hair with her own brush she would play soft

music in the room and do a joyous calm dance with me but as the child grew her

dreams and desires grew with her she started taking me to the TV room and playing

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a street dance clip she used to pull at my arms and throw me around until she got

tired by the time I escaped from her my arms were completely loose and motionless

I don’t know how I ended up with an ill child I was glad to be rid of the first child

although she was not a child any more as the moon in the sky changed from full

to a slice and then to half full I stayed in the small and weak hands of the child life

went by very slowly I tried as much as I could to please that child because out of a

room full of presents and toys, the child had chosen me and lately a small piano to

be close to her whenever her hands had enough power she would slowly move her

fingers over the keys of the piano the sounds would calm her and she would move

her head sideways and slowly move her legs most often she used to put her finger

on the c note as she prolonged the note she would slowly open her eyes at that point

I would start singing for the child even though I had never sung before this was the

secret that kept the piano the child and I bound together and stopped others from

separating us when that child left me a big bright part of the moon was visible from

the window the child slowly tilted her head until she could fully see the moon I didn’t

see the child again every time her mother saw me or the piano she would touch us

in a strange way and would smell us she used to see the small hands and singers of

her daughter in the piano keys and her deep and loyal gaze in my small and narrow

eyes she shed so many tears on me that my makeup faded one day the child’s father

grabbed my hand and the shoulder of the piano and along with three photos of me

the piano and the child threw us in one of the rubbish bins of the city which were

specific to children’s clothes and toys I stayed in the bin until it was filled up the place

was very crowded and unpleasant my turn came eventually to be put in a bag and

onto a car so that I could be resold to the children of another city and country until

I got off the car because I was a tall and beautiful girl a few pleasure seeking boys

took me for themselves and took all my clothes off in front of all the toys they would

take turns to get on top of me and turn me up and down as they pleased I asked a

lot for help from the teddy bear who was being used as a mattress under me but to

no avail my hands loosened even more and my left hand lost all motion my beautiful

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hair became undone and my left foot was bent now I can’t stand straight and limp

when I walk I found myself yet again in a toy shop in a city where it seemed that the

things raining were viruses so small that even our eyes couldn’t see them for a long

time I was naked they had put a safety pin on my hair and hung me at the back of the

shop I used to wonder what sort of child I would end up with this time and what sort

of treatment I would get at the same time I didn’t have much hope of attracting any

children given the state I was in I didn’t have enough humour left in me to dance with

any child or sing them any songs there were many more beautiful and better, more

colourfully dressed girls in the shop they had been placed away from me each time I

looked at them I thought that I had experienced more happiness and pain than them

I saw death as my boyfriend and life as their friend but even if we think of death or

suicide it is not like our death is in our own hand for we are creates of human mind

and effort only humans can destroy us whether they are children or adults for that

reason I decided to get rid of my cheerfulness let the sparkle in my eyes fade with

tears become unfriendly and dry my lips up I was in the third day of practising this

approach against life and against human love when a boy whom I can’t properly

describe (I have difficulty describing human form given that I am much smaller than

humans and when I see them I only see them in parts and slowly so that by the time

I see all of them I forget the parts I have seen earlier) extended his shaking hands

towards me they pulled me off the hook she fixed my hair and deeply stared at me...

boom

Note: no punctuation marks have been used as a technique.

Mohammad Nakam 3 March 2010

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Sakar Farooq

the work is made up of a car tyre used as a flower pot.

Installation. 2010. Sara building. Photo: Betwen Ali

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Bitwen Ali

four paper bags which contain different types of material such as insecticide, placed in four glass frames. The bags have been purchased in the market from insecticide vendors. The bags have been made from book pages which contain different types of information such as a frog’s life cycle.

Object. 2010. Sara building. Photo: Rozhgar Mahmood

Object. 2010. Sara building. Photo: Rozhgar Mahmood

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Aryan Abubakir material 60 to 70 condoms which have been blown to the maximum extent and put in a room.

Installation. 2010. Sara building. Photo: Rozhgar Mahmood

Installation. 2010. Sara building. Photo: Rozhgar Mahmood

Aryan Abubakir

chainging use and size of something,for example condoms

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Shemeran Muhamad

the work consisted of a 150 cm piece of thick string which had been hung from the centre of the building’s courtyard in a way that it seemed to be hanging from the sky.

Installation. 2010. Sara building. Photos: Betwn Ali Rozhgar Mahmood

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Sakar Abdullahthe work consists of a black canvas, on which a traditional butter making goat-skin bag has been sketched in white.

Painting. 2010. Sara building. Photo: Rozhgar Mahmood

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Painting. 2010. Sara building. Photo: Rozhgar Mahmood

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Rebeen Majeed

the work comprises 15 photos of different places, which have been taken at the time of the birth of the concept for the project.

Photo. 2009. Delezha. Photo. 2009. Delezha.

Photo. 2010. Sulaymanyiah.

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Photo. 2009. Delezha.




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79Exhibition days

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Final discution 2010. Khanzad Center.

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Sulaimanya Sera

According to available sources, when the kings of Baban founded Sulaimanya, they dedicated an area for their government buildings and called it ‘Sera’. In the beginning, this Sera was built with light bricks and its top was covered with wood and soil. It also had a basement. It was slightly north of the current Sera.

It appears that the Sera was built after the founding of the Kingdom in 19261928-. A close inspection of the building unearths English artistic influences and repetition. It also makes good use of light. It is in the centre of Sulaimany city. At present, renovations are planned for the Sera by Sulaimany Council and the Sulaimany historic monuments agency. It is planned to be turned into a historic, political and national museum of Sulaimany so that it can preserve the significant events in the city’s history, particularly: 1. The inauguration of the first King of Kurdistan, Sheikh Mahmood, in 1918 in front of Sera. Sulaimany was the first capital city of the first Kurdish government. 2. In 6 September 1930, a massive demonstration took place in the courtyard of the Sera. 3. In 9 October 1956, a demonstration by the people of Sulaimany took place outside the Sera when Sheikh Mahmood’s corpse was brought back. This Sera is a two story building and has

around 43 rooms. It has been renovated many times to accommodate officers, civil servants, the Police and the mayor’s office.

Hassan Ali Jaff 7

dado exhibition

Documents

new product

new stories

sera building

information revolution

elements of imagination

human imagination

joint project

range of related information