The Fabric / Kras û fistan

The work “The Fabric / Kras û fistan” as a multi-channel video installation shows a dancing group of women, formed in a line, with the clothes painted over with white plaster.Like sculptures dancing out of rigidity, struggling out of whiteness, moving out of the negated, freeing themselves from associations, transforming and revealing themselves in movement: a stripping bare without showing skin, exposing their self and their being as they show their Kras û fistan: becoming vulnerable as the Kurdish costume is seen in the dance and through the fracture of the plaster. The fabric does not protect, the fabric, the cut of the clothes to the Kurdish people a symbol, a confession of their Kurdishness, makes them the target of many regimes. Art becomes political when politics fails. Havîn Al-Sîndy works with layers, with layers that force viewers to stand still while the work, in motion, transforms.

The plaster that breaks, that is danced to pieces, exposes the figure of the women; as if the women were forming themselves while dancing; the artist who plastered them and robbed them of their freedom of movement in this process is no longer the creator of her work during the performance, the work takes on a life of its own in the dance: this too is a political analogy.

Text: Karosh Taha

Documentary photos: © Dirk Rose. With kind permission of Ihsan Alisan / Mouches Volantes.
Video stills: © Havîn Al-Sîndy