Through the Eyes of a Refugee:
Introducing Hayv Kahraman
by Betty Cribb
As an Arts and Humanities student, I was offered the opportunity to undertake a placement in order to gain work experience in my chosen field. As someone who hopes to one day conduct research, I decided that the best use of this work-based opportunity would be to consult one of the lecturers in the hope of gaining an insight into what researching is like. I decided to ask for a research placement with Dr Anna Ball, who taught me on the second -year module Culture and Anarchy.
I was fortunate to be given a topic that was extremely engaging and interesting, despite not knowing much about the topic in the beginning. I was able to explore the representations of migrant, refugee and asylum-seeking women within a large range of media outlets. This prompted many questions for me, and allowed me to question a lot of pre-existing assumptions I held myself. Now that this study has concluded, I am not only able to look past the misconceived reports in the press, but also to remember what these women have sacrificed, and how that sacrifice is being rewarded with stigmatised stereotypes and resentful citizens in their new host countries. While this article looks to focus specifically on the artist Hayv Kahraman, I think it is firstly important to acknowledge all of the amazing women who battle every day against the stigma not only of being a woman, but also of being a refugee, a migrant or an asylum seeker in today’s society.
So who is Hayv Kahraman? She is herself a ‘refugee woman’: Iraqi-born with Kurdish descent. She uses art as a medium to create works that emphasise the role of gender identity and refugee experience in cultural representation. At a glance, her art may be perceived as violent and raw, but there are much deeper meanings in the tones of the canvas. She has previously used art to make statements on war, female genital mutilation (FGM) and trauma (Parkes, 2016).
Kahraman moved from Iraq to Sweden with her family when she was eleven. She recalls her mother telling her to ‘flush them [fake passports] down the toilet’ upon arrival (Mohseni, 2012). A year passed, and when her father finally joined them at a refugee camp, they made their journey to Hudiksvall. As time passed, Kahraman decided she wanted to pursue art, and moved to Florence to study her degree in graphic design. It was during her time in Italy that she studied Western art, noting, however, the association of beauty with whiteness in Western culture: something that she has subsequently sought to challenge in her work.
In Italy, Kahraman met her husband, and later they moved to the United States together. However, this relationship became abusive, something Kahraman says can been seen within her work. This was a time where she describes her painting as an ‘outlet’ through which she explored the underlying issues within her relationship, as well as dramatizing the battles of identity she was experiencing. It caused her depression and guilt to know that she was ‘settling in the country that had virtually destroyed her own [country]’ (Mohseni, 2012).
What makes Kahraman’s work so special, aside from what it represents so well, is the way in which she creates her work. In an interview with Reorient, Kahraman explains that the linen which she uses for her canvases are imported from Belgium, and some of her techniques are inspired by the Renaissance – for example, she uses rabbit skin to make glue (Morris, 2015).
Kahraman uses a wide range of sensory aids in order to inspire her within her creative space. Not only does she turn to artistic processes of the past, but she also uses modern software to enhance her work. With the aid of specialist software, she has been able to make a 360-degree model of herself which can be manipulated to adopt different poses. Kahraman describes herself as feeling liberated by this ability to present self-portraits via the canvas. Another way in which she finds inspiration for her work is through audio aids, one of which is the noise of a siren. The siren is an iconic symbol of war and air raids, and she describes this experience as haunting as ‘it holts [me] to the ground: it signalled an event that might or might not end your life’ (Parkes, 2016).
Art is used by Kahraman as a creative space to explore traumas that not only reside in her life, but also in the lives of other women. Her work can be considered controversial as it illustrates the issues of womanhood, the refugee crisis and violent conflict. Her paintings force us to confront major issues of our time: we are forced to reflect as we find ourselves confronted with themes of rape, war and tradition within her work instead of turning a blind eye. In her work Sacrifice, for instance,we see three women removing the skin of a lamb. Her focus is not necessarily on the ritual but on the process of changing Western norms of “purity” and “innocence” (Parkes, 2016).
When looking at Kahraman’s work, we see not only depictions of the female form, but also of the female form’s interaction with the environment around it. I personally find Hayv Kahraman’s work to be highly relatable, because despite age, race or gender, women have either experienced, or know someone close to them who has experienced some form of sexual harassment. Instead of disputing race, gender, sexuality or national status, we should be disputing the issues of harassment, inequality and injustice.
Bibliography
Mohseni, Yasmine. 2012. Of Violence and Beauty: Hayv Kahraman’s Women. [Online]. [Accessed 10 March 2020] Available from: http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=30cee7d8-4cf2-4ff2-b511-6bb52462bb52%40pdc-v-sessmgr01
Morris, Natasha. 2015. How Iraqi Are You? [Online] [Accessed 10 March 2020] Available from: https://www.reorient.com/2015/10/hayv-kahraman/
Parkes, Olivia. 2016. The Artist Painting Memories of Iraq. [Online]. [Accessed 10 March 2020] Available from: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qkg7g7/hayv-kahraman-interview
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