On behalf of the Kurdish Political Studies Program and the School of Visual Arts and Design, UCF will finally be hosting Hiwa K Friday, February, 1 for an artist talk. This event will be held in Global Building 101 and will be held from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m.
“The works I do is very much about reminding how many fingerprints we have onto each other, how much we are embedded into each other.” – Hiwa K
Hiwa K was born in Sulaymaniyah in Kurdistan, Iraq. When he was 25, he left his hometown and traveled to Germany. His multidisciplinary work, ranging from sculpture, performance, installations and video, draws from personal anecdotes and memoirs to explore and discuss ongoing global political issues such as immigration, colonialism, and war. His work has been featured internationally in venues like Manifesta 7 (2008), the Venice Biennale (2015) and documenta14 (2017).
Last January, the UCF Art Gallery curated an exhibition entitled, “Finding Home: The Global Refugee Crisis.” The exhibition featured work from 14 global artists and explored political reactions to the global refugee crisis, borders as geographical and symbolical divisions, dislocation, asylum seeking and migration, refugee camps and detention centers and resettlement cities. Hiwa K was one of the 14 artists featured in this exhibition. Three of the videos he featured in the exhibition, reflected moments in his life or stories from refugees. However, he was unable to come to UCF and give an artist talk during this time due to these political issues being address in the exhibition. Though he had a German passport, he was not granted entry to the United States because he had recently been to Iraq.
“There’s a certain irony to the themes from this exhibit playing out really right now in our global political climate,” Keri Watson, assistant professor of art history at UCF said. “We were unable to bring a really famous artist here because of the color of his skin.”
On behalf of the Kurdish Political Studies Program and the School of Visual Arts and Design, UCF will finally be hosting Hiwa K Friday, February, 1 for an artist talk. This event will be held in Global Building 101 and will be held from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Learn more about Hiwa K at hiwak.net