Trace and history: an investigation of Kurdish banner-making through contemporary art practice.
type: CreativeWork
description: Abstract Author: Rostam Abdulazeez Hakeem Title: Trace and history: an investigation of Kurdish banner-making through contemporary art practice. This practice-led research project considers the culture of banner-making in Iraqi Kurdistan. The research is trans-disciplinary in character, combining artistic, historical, and sociological research. The calligraphers’ workshops of the city of Sulaymaniyah in Kurdish Iraq are a focal point. Here the backing-boards to banner-making have absorbed traces of slogans written on banners for many different purposes over extended periods of time. The permitted appropriation of these backing-board palimpsests provides material for the development of an innovative genre of abstract painting, deploying calligraphy to embody a coded chronicle of communal life in Kurdistan. Concurrently, interviews with the calligraphers of Sulaymaniyah are undertaken, and these, in conjunction with conventional historical research into Kurdish banner-making, provide important context to the practice. Many first-hand stories of the calligraphers contain powerful socio-political insights, especially regarding the status of martyrdom in the region, and evidence of corruption in martyrdom designation. These insights lead to an invitation to a normally inaccessible archive, research into which prompts a significant shift in theoretical and artistic mode, away from personal expression through the globalised field of abstract painting, toward a socially engaged methodology deployed through an installation in the Archaeological Museum of Sulaymaniyah, in which the creative role is envisaged as means to provide the calligraphers of the city with a collective voice in response to a potent concern. Contributions to knowledge are made through: the appropriation of distinctive material to develop a specific genre of abstraction; new insights gained through interviews with calligraphers; historical research from photographic archives, and martyrdom archives; throu…
abstract: Abstract Author: Rostam Abdulazeez Hakeem Title: Trace and history: an investigation of Kurdish banner-making through contemporary art practice. This practice-led research project considers the culture of banner-making in Iraqi Kurdistan. The research is trans-disciplinary in character, combining artistic, historical, and sociological research. The calligraphers’ workshops of the city of Sulaymaniyah in Kurdish Iraq are a focal point. Here the backing-boards to banner-making have absorbed traces of slogans written on banners for many different purposes over extended periods of time. The permitted appropriation of these backing-board palimpsests provides material for the development of an innovative genre of abstract painting, deploying calligraphy to embody a coded chronicle of communal life in Kurdistan. Concurrently, interviews with the calligraphers of Sulaymaniyah are undertaken, and these, in conjunction with conventional historical research into Kurdish banner-making, provide important context to the practice. Many first-hand stories of the calligraphers contain powerful socio-political insights, especially regarding the status of martyrdom in the region, and evidence of corruption in martyrdom designation. These insights lead to an invitation to a normally inaccessible archive, research into which prompts a significant shift in theoretical and artistic mode, away from personal expression through the globalised field of abstract painting, toward a socially engaged methodology deployed through an installation in the Archaeological Museum of Sulaymaniyah, in which the creative role is envisaged as means to provide the calligraphers of the city with a collective voice in response to a potent concern. Contributions to knowledge are made through: the appropriation of distinctive material to develop a specific genre of abstraction; new insights gained through interviews with calligraphers; historical research from photographic archives, and martyrdom archives; throu…
author: Hakeem, Rostam
language: eng
keywords: Banner-making, the Culture of, Iraqi Kurdistan, Contemporary Art, Calligraphy, Practice-led Research, Appropriation
date published: 2020-01-01T08:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T03:47:57Z
provider: University of Plymouth
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Plymouth