Kurdish art has been developing in complex political and economic conditions. Towards the end of the Iranian-Iraqi war (1980–1988), which claimed many victims on both sides of the conflict, the Kurdish people in Iraq experienced the horror of a genocide ordered by Saddam Hussain. The dramatic struggle for independence became the key element of the Kurdish culture and the policy of remembrance and constitutes not only a part of the collective experience, but also the dominating narration, through which the identity of the autonomous Region of Kurdistan is created. The development of a new language of art in a country struggling with wars and doomed to a fight for survival is particularly difficult. Nevertheless, a group of artists whose works are related to the reality that affects them have managed to accomplish it.

The works presented at the exhibition undertake the subject of the experience of the history, as well as social and lifestyle-related changes taking place in the region. Their authors belong to the generation of thirty- and forty-year olds and most of them have had an opportunity to study abroad, mainly in Germany, Great Britain and Scandinavia. Some of them returned to their homeland and have been teaching in schools of art, while others remained in the diaspora. The artists invited to the National Museum include: Hiwa K (Berlin/Sulaymaniyah), Sherko Abbas (Manchester), Kani Kamil (Manchester), Shirwan Fatih (Sulaymaniyah), Rebeen Hamarafiq (Sulaymaniyah), Rozhgar Mustafa (Sulaymaniyah), Sakar Sleman (Sulaymaniyah), Walid Siti (London), and Halgurd A. Baram (Sulaymaniyah).

Exhibition partner: GALLERY ARSENAŁ in Białystok