A trip with my father in the town
Halo of Shame I, 2021
There are mainly 3 works displayed in the exhibition
Title: A trip with my father in the town: Installation: video in a cart made of MDF
Title: My brother still whispers to me: Sound installation, sound designer: Merette Mongstad
Title: Sharp As A knife: cartridge cases and textile
Installation views: Kunstplass Contemporary Art, Oslo
Photo credit: Shwan Dler Qaradaki
Language as a mode of communication in general, and one’s mother tongue in particular, make an important part of our existence, regardless of whether we live among our fellow native speakers, or in a foreign language community abroad. But how does it feel to be deprived of the possibility to use your own mother’s tongue as a minority in your own country under conditions of the ruling powers’ tyrannical oppression? It is a human right to speak one's own mother tongue. Through language we convey opinions, thoughts and feelings – in short, the opportunity to express ourselves. By depriving a person of their mother tongue, one also deprives them of a significant part of their identity, which in turn can lead to the concerned person’s alienation feeling, frustration, and the artificial construction of a cultural gap among individuals. Shwan Dler Qaradaki's solo exhibition Halo of Shame is based on his own experience of living under a dictatorship system in the 1980s Iraqi Kurdistan as a member of the minor Kurdish population, that used to be officially deprived of any possibility to communicate in their mother tongue, thus becoming exposed to a slow process of silencing and linguicide as a prelude to the bloody politics of mass extermination by genocide.
Halo of Shame I, 2021
There are mainly 3 works displayed in the exhibition
Title: A trip with my father in the town: Installation: video in a cart made of MDF
Title: My brother still whispers to me: Sound installation, sound designer: Merette Mongstad
Title: Sharp As A knife: cartridge cases and textile
Installation views: Kunstplass Contemporary Art, Oslo
Photo credit: Shwan Dler Qaradaki
Language as a mode of communication in general, and one’s mother tongue in particular, make an important part of our existence, regardless of whether we live among our fellow native speakers, or in a foreign language community abroad. But how does it feel to be deprived of the possibility to use your own mother’s tongue as a minority in your own country under conditions of the ruling powers’ tyrannical oppression? It is a human right to speak one's own mother tongue. Through language we convey opinions, thoughts and feelings – in short, the opportunity to express ourselves. By depriving a person of their mother tongue, one also deprives them of a significant part of their identity, which in turn can lead to the concerned person’s alienation feeling, frustration, and the artificial construction of a cultural gap among individuals. Shwan Dler Qaradaki's solo exhibition Halo of Shame is based on his own experience of living under a dictatorship system in the 1980s Iraqi Kurdistan as a member of the minor Kurdish population, that used to be officially deprived of any possibility to communicate in their mother tongue, thus becoming exposed to a slow process of silencing and linguicide as a prelude to the bloody politics of mass extermination by genocide.
