{"id":31549,"date":"2024-02-12T08:04:42","date_gmt":"2024-02-12T06:04:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/?p=31549"},"modified":"2024-02-12T08:09:36","modified_gmt":"2024-02-12T06:09:36","slug":"issam-kourbajs-love-letter-to-syria-in-cambridge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/issam-kourbajs-love-letter-to-syria-in-cambridge\/","title":{"rendered":"Issam Kourbaj’s Love Letter to Syria in Cambridge"},"content":{"rendered":"
The razing of Gaza is reminiscent of the wholesale destruction of Syria seemingly forgotten by the world. In a corner of Britain, one artist keeps the memory and his creative commitment to his country alive.<\/span><\/h5>\n
Exhibition preview: Issam Kourbaj: Urgent Archive, at Kettle’s Yard<\/a>, Cambridge, March 2 to May 26, 2024<\/h5>\n

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Sophie Kazan Makhlouf<\/span><\/h4>\n

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When the artist <\/span>Issam Kourbaj<\/span><\/a> was first asked to create a retrospective exhibition for <\/span>the University of Cambridge\u2019s modern and contemporary art gallery at <\/span>Kettle’s Yard<\/span><\/a>,<\/span> about his time in Cambridge, he refused. Kourbaj reasoned that a more urgent focus for any art exhibition were the events happening in Syria. <\/span>From the total estimated 306,887 Syrians to have been killed between March 1, 2011 and March 31, 2021 due to the conflict, the UN estimates that more than half of these people were not identified.<\/span><\/p>\n

The resulting exhibition of Kourbaj\u2019s work,<\/span> Urgent Archive<\/span><\/i>, curated by <\/span>Guy Haywood with Amy Tobin,<\/span> will open at Kettle’s Yard on March 2, 2024. The artist, a seasoned resident of this renowned university city of over 30 years, will be visiting the gallery regularly to add, omit and shift the exhibition works to give it, he says, a feeling of relevance.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Syrian-born artist has, for many years been creating work that responds to the country\u2019s destruction and the humanitarian crisis that has separated him from family and friends. The exhibition at Kettle’s Yard will contain an array of mixed media work that includes some recognizable pieces from past exhibitions. These include a selection of small boats from the <\/span>Dark Water, Burning World <\/span><\/i>(<\/span>2016) <\/span>installation that Kourbaj showed at the Fitzwilliam Museum in 2017 and later in the British Museum\u2019s <\/span>Living with Gods <\/span><\/i>exhibition in 2017 and 2018.<\/span><\/p>\n

Two years later, the boats were famously selected as an addition to the 100 objects that the BM\u2019s then director, Neil McGregor, had chosen in the <\/span>History of the World in 100 Objects<\/span><\/i>. Made from recycled bicycle mudguards and half-burned matches \u2014none completely dead, Kourbaj notes \u2014 these boats commemorate the resilience of migrants, escaping traumatic events and sometimes perishing at sea.<\/span><\/p>\n

In another exhibition entitled <\/span>Scaling the Dark <\/span><\/i>in 2021, at the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam, 122 boats such as these, which represented the 122 months of the Syrian crisis (at the time) along with seeds and sand, formed part of an installation by the artist. Seeds continue to represent an important theme of life, growth and also the scarcity of bread and starvation suffered by the Syrian people.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Issam<\/a>
Issam Kourbaj, Kettle’s Yard<\/a>, “Defaced Intermediate Historical Atlas,” 2019 (photo This Is Photography, courtesy the artist).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After completing a first Fine Art degree at the University of Fine Art in Damascus, Kourbaj then gained a grant to study architecture at the Repin Institute of Fine Arts and Architecture in Leningrad (St. Petersburg). It is this and perhaps also his time at the Wimbledon School of Art, studying theatre and set design that inspired the artist\u2019s references to space and place-making. <\/span>Defaced Intermediate Historical Atlas <\/span><\/i>(<\/span>2019) are the double pages of an atlas, with a blood-red line struck across the map of Syria and the conflicting words \u201cNo Red Line,\u201d added to the lower half of the map.<\/span><\/p>\n

This seems to confirm the nonsensical nature of the country\u2019s political situation and it also makes the destruction of Kourbaj\u2019s homeland and the places of his memories all the more tragic. Destruction, change and rebuilding are no strangers to Kourbaj, which is why, over the 12-week exhibition, he will be ensuring that the ideas and works remain significant to the exhibition and that they maintain their urgency. \u201cMany of the artworks have never been exhibited before,\u201d says Kourbaj. \u201cIf I could invite other people from other cultures to identify or feel that something touches them,\u201d he adds with a modicum of modesty, \u201cthat is a great bonus, but I don\u2019t want to talk about only me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n