‘Artwork Is the Solely Weapon That Doesn’t Damage or Kill’ — World Points
CIVICUS discusses public artwork, gender-based violence and censorship in Iraqi Kurdistan with Tara Abdullah, a multidisciplinary visible artist from Sulaymaniyah who’s at present primarily based in Oslo, Norway as a part of the Safemuse – Protected Havens for Artists residency.
In Iraqi Kurdistan, the place conservative spiritual and social norms forestall open dialogue of gender-based violence, femicide stays a persistent, under-reported disaster. Artists who take these points into public area, as a substitute of confining them to galleries or non-public establishments, danger backlash from spiritual authorities, authorized motion and the withdrawal of state permits and funding.
How did you turn out to be an artivist?
I’m from Sulaymaniyah within the Kurdistan Area of Iraq, and I’ve been utilizing artwork to precise myself since I used to be a toddler. I fought laborious to get into artwork faculty. After ninth grade, I joined the Institute of Artwork and studied there for 5 years, then studied for 4 extra years on the School of High quality Arts on the College of Sulaymaniyah and graduated in 2020. All in all, I spent virtually a decade learning artwork and studying new supplies and strategies I may carry into my work.
Since I graduated in 2020, I’ve used artwork in many various types, and over the previous six years I’ve tried to carry artwork and activism collectively, primarily round environmental conservation and ladies’s rights.
Doing artwork as a girl right here isn’t simple. Dogmas round tradition, faith and custom imply most types of artwork are thought of haram, or forbidden. Even contained in the artwork group, I’ve discovered a form of disgust in direction of sure types of artwork, with folks saying some issues are too provocative or politically fallacious. However studying month-to-month knowledge on femicide and violence towards girls has pushed me additional to attempt to use parts of the tradition and society I grew up in to attempt to break the pink traces set for girls.
What was the Female Challenge?
It was a venture I began in 2020, during which I collected garments from girls who had confronted violence. I went door to door throughout hundreds of houses within the metropolis and surrounding cities to interview the ladies and acquire a chunk of clothes together with their story. I sewed the items collectively and hung them alongside a five-kilometre stretch of the town’s most important avenue, main from the principle courtroom to the general public park.
This was my thought of a peaceable protest. Ladies right here can’t communicate brazenly concerning the violence they face. In the event that they did, they’d face fast backlash. Their garments themselves carry disgrace. When girls cling their washing out, they cowl their underwear so it isn’t seen by anybody. I needed to point out that not even girls’s garments have the liberty to be touched by the solar, not to mention the ladies themselves.
I put up a public set up quite than a gallery, as a result of I needed the general public uncovered to it, not simply the small artwork group that already agrees with these concepts. By the tip of the primary day, folks began tearing the piece down and burning components of it, and it triggered an enormous backlash on-line and offline.
What venture did you’re employed on then?
After the Female Challenge, I had hundreds of tales from the ladies I’d interviewed. So in late 2022 I began my Voice Challenge. I turned the tales right into a two-minute speech carrying the load of all of it: honour killing, suicide, violence. Ladies listed here are anticipated to maintain a low voice and by no means give their opinion. Choices are made for them by males. So I created a voice for them.
I performed the message by 66 synchronised audio system throughout 4 cities and three surrounding cities in Sulaymaniyah province, all on the similar time. I used megaphones intentionally. They’re symbolically loaded as a result of they’re utilized in mosques by mullahs for the decision to prayer. In most nations, anybody can communicate, however right here it’s at all times a person’s voice, whether or not it’s calling folks to prayer or promoting groceries. I needed to point out girls additionally had a voice.
This prompted an excellent larger backlash than the primary venture. Individuals began shutting down the audio system, and the mullahs pushed to carry me to courtroom, accusing me of an immoral act towards our tradition, faith and custom. They accused me of selling homosexuality, which genuinely shocked me, as a result of the piece was straightforwardly about violence towards girls. When the decide known as me in for an announcement, he requested whether or not I used to be selling ‘queer ideology’. I replied that my work promotes particular person freedom. The case was ultimately dismissed, however I needed to get in a foreign country and keep away for a couple of weeks till issues settled down.
I feel the backlash comes from the visibility. The artwork group is tiny, and artwork sometimes stays inside galleries the place only a few folks see it. However if you carry it out into the general public area, it exposes emotions the general public didn’t know had been there.
How do you handle the dangers that this work brings?
For the Female Challenge, constructing belief with the ladies was very troublesome. I needed to reassure them I wasn’t taking images or recording their voices, and allow them to verify this was true. Even then, some rejected the thought outright, saying issues like, ‘So what are you going to do, are you superwoman? Issues gained’t change’, or accusing me of attempting to destroy their households.
Not one of the garments within the closing set up had been tied to a reputation, so the ladies’s security was protected. That meant all of the strain landed on me. I come from a really conventional, spiritual household who by no means accredited of me going into artwork. Once I was making ready the Female Challenge, I informed them I used to be doing charity work. When the reality got here out, there was an enormous battle at dwelling, together with violence. However this didn’t make me again down. As a substitute, it made me extra decided.
I do know that by endeavor these tasks I danger being taken to courtroom, being denied permission to work or receiving on-line smears and threats. But when I don’t do that, who will? I’m pleased with what I’ve performed and I’ll hold doing it.
What help have you ever obtained?
There are at all times going to be folks for and towards, however actually, most public response leans towards this type of work. However I’ve additionally obtained some encouragement. Following the Female and Voice tasks, many ladies contacted me anonymously to inform me how a lot reduction the work gave them, as somebody was lastly saying what they’d needed to say themselves.
Nevertheless, a lot of the help I obtain comes from exterior Iraq. After the Voice Challenge, I used to be blacklisted and I couldn’t get any funding or permission for public installations, so I began making use of for worldwide prizes as a substitute.
In 2023 I used to be shortlisted for the Future Era Artwork Prize in Ukraine, out of 12,000 purposes, for an set up constructing a bridge between Kurdish girls’s expertise of violence and warfare and Ukrainian girls residing by the present battle, and I gained the particular prize in 2024. I additionally obtained the Alpine Fellowship Visible Artwork Prize in 2023 and the Prince Claus Seed Award in 2025. Researchers have written papers about my work, and in 2025, I confirmed a rough-cut documentary concerning the Voice Challenge in Warsaw and an indoor set up about Kurdish girls’s expertise in Kraków, Poland. That worldwide consideration retains me going, and I exploit the publicity and funding to maintain constructing strain again dwelling.
How do you collaborate with others?
I work as a person artist. I usher in craftspeople and freelancers to assist make each bit, however most of them ask me to not use their names. They need the cash, not the affiliation. I at all times clarify the danger actually to folks, and lots of again out.
Once I can, I usher in native girls to do the work and pay them. For the Female Challenge I had dozens of girls doing the stitching. For my environmental work, I attempt to contain as many ladies and younger folks as attainable. For a water pageant in 2025, I made large puppets out of reed and recycled biodegradable materials alongside 20 folks, working workshops over 10 days so they may study to make use of artwork to ship their very own messages.
Collaboration carries danger. Once I ran a seminar on artwork and peace, safety forces raided it on the second day and took me in for questioning. However my message to anybody going through suppression or violence is to not be afraid. Speak about it; carry it out into the open. You don’t need to be accepted by a corrupted setting round you to just accept your self.
For me, artwork is a complete universe you may match every part into: your concepts, your lovely issues and the issues round you. You should use artwork to strive to sort things. It’s the one weapon that doesn’t harm or kill.
CIVICUS interviews a variety of civil society activists, specialists and leaders to assemble various views on civil society motion and present points for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and don’t essentially replicate these of CIVICUS. Publication doesn’t suggest endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they signify.
SEE ALSO
Iraq: ‘The proposed amendments to the Private Standing Legislation are an assault on girls’s rights’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Mohammed Juma 07.Dec.2024
Iraq: ‘Tolerance for abuses towards LGBTQI+ folks has now been made express by laws’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Sarah Sanbar 26.Jun.2024
Iraq: ‘We’ve submitted many payments, however parliament refuses to undertake a legislation towards GBV’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Alyaa Al Ansari 07.Mar.2022
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