Taking the form of an extended music video, the work centres around performances by Amal Saeed Kurda of the Kurdish love song ‘Divine Kiss’, and ‘Cry Me A Waterfall’, a newly composed English language love song written to Bekhal waterfall in Kurdistan.

The film aims to explore the long-distance relationship between a person of diaspora and the disputed region of Kurdistan, which has been denied status as an independent sovereign nation for over a century, and whose people and culture have long been suppressed and persecuted.

The work explores the problematic feelings of nationalism and wanting to claim a land that has been denied Kurds, through the desire to either conquer or have communion with the land, considering the fluid and fictive space that homeland can occupy beyond geographical definitions of statehood, and the symbiosis of identity as synonymous with stateless land.

By operating in both Kurdish and English, the film touches on the hybrid aspect of diasporic identity and the extent of expression that language, song and music can convey, following the Kurdish practice of turning poetry into song, and hence the alternative ways the culture has survived and been archived despite the systemic censorship and assimilation it faces.

This exhibition is part of a programme of four exhibitions and related events at Two Queens that aim to evaluate the ways we use language when making and talking about contemporary art. The programme is made possible by public funding from the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

Visiting Information:
Gallery Opening Times: Thursday – Saturday 12-5pm and by appointment (email info@2queens.com to arrange a visit outside of normal times.)