"Suli" is one of the major cities of Iraqi Kurdistan and often called the "capital of Kurdish culture".
Surrounded by the Azmer, Goyija, Qaiwan and Baranan mountain ranges, the city sits nestled, like a little bird in the palm of giant rock hands.
 |
| The city of Sulaimani by day (above) and by night (below). |
It is lovely, but very different from where I come from.
Originally from the lakes, rivers and beaches of South Carolina, I moved to Atlanta, Georgia in 1998 to pursue my career as a dancer and later my Master's degree in Anthropology. It was also in Atlanta a number of years later that I met my handsome Kurdish husband. By that point, I had been working and traveling in the Middle East for a number of years both as a dancer but also as an anthropologist. But it was my because of my husband that I became more interested in the Kurds and Kurdistan.
In 2013, a year after we married, he and I "returned" to Iraqi Kurdistan. Since then we have been back and forth between here and the US.
In September of 2016, we came here to stay for about a year so that I could pursue research for my dissertation. So far, it has been a beautiful, interesting, challenging, heartbreaking and eye-opening six months.
I wouldn't trade my time here with my husband, doing this work for anything!
But...a little more about "Suli"...
The choice of Sulaimani as my primary field site is in fact connected to our family connections here but also to the city’s long history as a unique center of culture. Kurdish ties to family and friends are not to be discounted. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, happens or doesn't happen here by virtue of who you are connected to. This includes who you socialize with; how you get a job; how you get a husband or wife...it even includes your financial and physical security.
When we were newly dating, my husband, an artist himself, would tell me stories about his home town. Sulaimani is uniquely suited for research in the Arts. One of the major cities in both the Kurdistan region and in Iraq, "Suli" has nurtured the writers, actors, poets, painters and musicians of Kurdistan since its founding. Today, the city has a vibrant cultural scene with an active media, multiple museums and universities. It is not at all uncommon to walk down the street and see famous singers, writers and actors out buying their groceries or having a cup of strong Kurdish tea. The city is big but not too big and everyone seems to know everyone else. It makes direct access to these amazing artists a bit easier.
 |
| Painted stones from Kurdish visual artist and icon, Ismail Khayat |
But...a little bit more about what I'm doing here...
In an effort to unravel the mystery that is the "Kurdish Question", I turned to what I know best and what I've know all of my life...THE ARTS!
As a professional dancer and the daughter of a theatre teacher, ART is the world I live in and always have. Arts folk innately see the world a little different and through training in the Arts we are encouraged to find creative solutions and build in spaces where others finding nothing.
So, when pursuing my PhD in International Conflict Management, I naturally turned to the Arts for perspective and inspiration. Through my husband's own lived experiences I was connected with the Art world here...my people on the other side of the World! So my project was born. In as simple terms as I can put it, I am using the Arts to more deeply consider conflict here in Iraqi Kurdistan. My research places the practices of Kurdish painters currently working here within the historical context of the Iraqi state and traces the linkages between contemporary Iraqi Kurdish visual art, as a historically particular phenomenon, and its linkages to the performance of power and identity.
'Sounds like fun?
Well, that's all for now...More from the streets a little later...
No comments:
Post a Comment