Hayv Kahraman (Iraqi, 1981) Al Malwiya

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Al-Malwiya
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Samarra Archaeological City
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Hayv Kahraman
Hayv Kahraman (born 1981) is an Iraqi artist and
painter. Her works reflect the controversial
issues of gender, honor killings and war, all
issues that plague her home country of Iraq. Hayv
currently lives and works in Phoenix, AZ, United
States. Born in Baghdad, Iraq in 1981, and moved
to Sweden at the age of 11. She began oil
painting at the age of 12 and later had several
successful exhibitions in Sweden. Kahraman soon
after moved to Italy and graduated from the
Accademia di arte e design di Firenze in Florence
with graphic design in 2005, on the same year she
also won first place in a poster competition from
Carnival of Ivrea in Ivrea, Italy. In 2006, she
went on to study web design at the University of
Umeå in Umeå, Sweden. Kahraman's artwork depict
the effects of war, and how they affect women
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In Arabic Waraq means "paper cards," and
references a common pastime Kahraman encountered
often in the day to day afternoons of many
Iraqis, before she herself (and many of them)
left their homeland. These immigrants' stories of
assimilation, alienation and discovery play out
in ten paintings and a large installation
structured using the imagery of a newly invented
suit of cards. Each of these large paintings on
panel will then be reduced and reproduced in
familiar images that feature Kahraman's
reinventions of these cards, from the two through
the ace. These new printed playing cards will
subsequently be sewn with white thread into an 18
foot hanging installation, the artist's Project
Al-Malwiya, which resembles an upside-down
hanging version of a ninth century spiraling
minaret (standing 52 meters tall, the same as the
number of cards in a full deck). The Al-Malwiya
tower is accepted as an Iraqi cultural landmark,
one now partially destroyed by the cycles of war
and internecine reprisals that have greatly
impacted life in Iraq over the last 18 years.
Kahraman's project also references so called
"Archaeology awareness playing cards," 40,000
decks of which were printed and sent to American
troops in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2007. These
decks were designed to make troops aware of the
damage they can cause to sites and to discourage
the illegal trade in artifacts
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2011
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 Presentation Sanda Foisoreanu  
Sunet Djivan Gasparyan - Doudouk