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Around 20 artists will gath­er dur­ing the 2nd “Kur­dish Art Fair” which will take place on Decem­ber 8 in Lon­don, to pro­mote Kur­dish art, and sup­port Zehra Doğan, Kur­dish artist in prison in Turkey.

Please find here­after some words from the peo­ple involved in this adven­ture since 2016, pre­sent­ing this initiative.

The Kur­dish Art Fair is an excit­ing event that show­cas­es some of the finest works of art from Kur­dish painters, pho­tog­ra­phers, sculp­tors, and illus­tra­tors. In a broad­er sense, it cel­e­brates artists whose work tru­ly reflects Kur­dish cul­ture and identity.

Due to oppres­sion, hos­til­i­ty, and war in the Mid­dle East, Kurds have been con­stant­ly dis­placed and forced to migrate. This has restrict­ed Kur­dish cre­ativ­i­ty, pre­vent­ing the Kur­dish peo­ple from exhibit­ing their own cul­ture and iden­ti­ty through art. Through the Kur­dish Art Fair, we hope to pro­vide a plat­form for Kur­dish artists to put for­ward and pro­mote their work.

We believe that these gath­er­ings will help us reunite Kurds across the world, and will open up oppor­tu­ni­ties for heal­ing and sup­port by shar­ing our injus­tices through art. By bring­ing artists and art fans togeth­er, we will be able to dis­cov­er each oth­er and doc­u­ment our works. In addi­tion, we can speak about our real­i­ty which we believe deserves a voice with­in the cham­ber of inter­na­tion­al pub­lic opinion.

The Kur­dish Art Fair is a non-prof­it organ­i­sa­tion found­ed in 2016 by two friends, Sev­can Yük­sel Hen­shall and Yük­sel Adıgüzel, which sees artists donate at least 40% of the prof­its from their art­work to select­ed Kur­dish char­i­ties. Our first event was a huge suc­cess, rais­ing £1470.90 for Fam­i­ly Sup­port Cam­paign (Kardeş Aile) which pro­vides finan­cial sup­port to poor, sick, and war-strick­en fam­i­lies who are in need of assis­tance in North­ern Kurdistan.

We will be hold­ing a sec­ond fair on Sat­ur­day 8th Decem­ber 2018 in Stoke New­ing­ton Library Gallery. This event is ded­i­cat­ed to the cap­tive Kur­dish artist and jour­nal­ist Zehra Doğan. The artist was sen­tenced to 2 years 9 months in prison by the Turk­ish gov­ern­ment on 24 March 2017 for sim­ply paint­ing a pic­ture of the city of Nusay­bin, which was heav­i­ly dam­aged by the state secu­ri­ty forces. She was also sen­tenced for shar­ing a mes­sage from a 10-year-old girl liv­ing in Nusay­bin writ­ten in the peri­od of the attack. She con­tin­ues to paint and resist her cap­tors despite all the restric­tions and pro­hi­bi­tions in the deten­tion cen­tre. The fair will exhib­it her art work from prison, which has been cre­at­ed using colours she obtained from cook­ing mate­ri­als and waste. These unique works of courage, defi­ance, and cre­ativ­i­ty will be on sale for the first time at the Kur­dish Art Fair.

Using Zehra’s tes­ti­mo­ny, the real­i­ty and his­to­ry depict­ed in her paint­ings, and the work of oth­er artists, we hope to dri­ve aware­ness of the oppres­sion and false impris­on­ment that so many like Zehra Doğan have suf­fered. Count­less human rights activists, jour­nal­ists, lawyers, and intel­lec­tu­als want to be heard, and our event aims to make their voic­es loud­er and impos­si­ble to ignore. Addi­tion­al­ly, the income from this year’s art sale will be donat­ed to Zehra’s art work­shop project for children.

Some of the artists who will exhib­it their work at the Kur­dish Art Fair 2018 are: Zehra Doğan, Sev­can Yük­sel Hen­shall, Yük­sel Adıgüzel, İlyas Kırkan, Shorsh Saleh, Janet Biehl, Jasım Gha­fur, Kae Bahar, Mat­tı­na Hiwaizi, Saz­gar Abdalka­rım Abdal­rah­man, Soniya Ahmed, Yeter Aydemir, Sev­gi Kay­mak, Erem Kan­soy, Dilan Ulu­soy, A. Ender Cemgil, Kale Doğan et Raman Aso.

For more infor­ma­tion, please vis­it www.kurdishartfair.com or send an e‑mail to kurdishartfair@gmail.com.
We are also on Face­book @kurdishartfair & Face­book event, and on Twit­ter @kurdishartfair

 


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