MOUNTAIN (AR)RANGE

"The Mountain (ar) Range"
Installation/sound installation
With Vooria Aria
Fitzrovia gallery
London-2019
(Destroyed)

An installation exploring themes of
production,consumption, appropriation, repercussion of war...

Exhibition statement:

This is neither a political statement, nor a philosophical text or a flowered delusion.

Here, we aim to describe these pieces’ raison d’etre in pure simple terms and away from a flatulent masquerade of verses; a new war and dictatorship has taken over our world while a perpetual numbness and passivity has some of us.

We are artists; a portrayal the frame of which is constructed in our own minds more than anywhere else. A portrayal that, at least in our minds, has the capability of becoming ideological; the capability of passing through the current concept of artist as the producer of luxury goods and leaning towards the concept of a contemporary activist of a man.
We are intellectuals! With an attitude that is at least moving towards a thorough explanation of word; with an attitude that describes the world as it is and envisions the world as it should be.

War for us is not death approaching us inside a bullet, nor is it a ruin stuck in a bomb’s throat. It is not a displacement that’s driven us towards another displacement. War for us is not a headline amongst the latest news. War for us is the presentation of a win-win situation for one side and a lose-lose situation for the other.
Our aim and duty is to come up with an analysis of the world's events, to pass through the terrifying phase of processing it and then following that, to go through the painful process of giving birth to the final piece based on this process. This is the least of which I’m certain of.

We don’t intend to reduce ‘us’ into the two artists of this exhibition that we are. The concept that we have in mind is the ‘us’ that we are meant to be.

The aim is to clarify the altered word ‘us’ into what we assume it to be. An ‘us’ that is a witness to and narrative of its time. The time when waves of refugees entering the West has fuelled extremist right-wing movements. The refugees who were made refugees by the wars that were created by the very same governments in the first place. The time when despite its fierce class distinctions, even the fake gesture of caring for humanity has been replaced, amongst politicians, by profitability, demagoguery and plain evident injustice.

The time that has been dominated by a virtual religion/ power/ capital/ hope/ goal/ need/ present…

The time that has given birth to fear and hope simultaneously; a hope that has grown in Lebanon, Chile, Hong Kong, Iraq and Iran to bring freedom, equality and social justice and a fear that has been born from war, ignorance, fundamentalism, and racial and religious extremism.

The time when the north of Syria brought us the promise of a modern society filled with equality and freedom. A sapling that was planted in the heart of the Middle East next to a growing racial and religious extremism and a blustering governmental capitalism, while shaking from thousands of winds and blizzards. A sapling that has come to life from the honesty of thousands of intellectual and enlightened minds of Kurd, Arab, Syrian, Assyrian, Turkman, Chechen, Armenian and Cherokee from one side, and global citizens from Europe, Latin America, Iran and Turkey etc. from the other and is now threatened by greed, fear and deceits of some. Yet a sapling that will come tomorrow and grow everywhere in the world.

We are Kurds! Yet, believing in freedom of people, we have consciously learnt to think, act and live as citizens of the world. Nonetheless, we cannot deny that we fell asleep listening to the sound of the Kurdish lullabies and we can surely understand with all our hearts today when the Kurdish children ears taking refuge from the howls of bullet and shrapnel in plaintive song of lullabies. We too have shaken our shoulders with the sound of Sorna and Dohol (horn and drum) and have held hands with our loved ones; with hands that will become a chain of unity with other people of Iran and the world until tomorrows.

For us though, it seems that - if not our only friend - the mountain is - our best friend.


[In the midst of preparation works for this exhibition, which stemmed from our grief and anger over the recent crisis in Syria, another even unfolded.

Iran once again roared and this time with thousands of new methods of protesting and yet again was supressed in the most brutal and inhumane way. A topic that was impossible to fully explore in this exhibition. We therefore decided to append another mountain to it and present this exhibition hoping to leave behind the bitterness of these days and believing in the brightness of tomorrow.]