projects - Sharjah Art Foundation

Rushdi Anwar draws from his personal experience as a Kurdish refugee and survivor of state violence to contemplate issues of displacement and trauma
endured as a result of colonial and ideological regimes.

A Hope and Peace to End All Hope and Peace (2023–ongoing)

Rushdi Anwar
From ‘A Hope and Peace to End All Hope and Peace’, 2023–ongoing

They Filled Our World Full of Shadow, and Then They Tell Us To Seek The Light
2023
Digital-UV print on stainless steel, plywood, paint, and cast brass bullets
Dimensions variable

Turn Your Silver Into Bullets
2023
Digital-UV print on stainless steel, cast brass bullets, synthetic paint on wood
91 x 64 x 17 cm

The Kingdom of Dust Ruled by Stones
2023
From ‘A Hope and Peace to End All Hope and Peace’, 2023–ongoing
Brass and steel
250 x 240 x 90 cm

They Filled Our World Full of Shadow, and Then They Tell Us To Seek The Light
2023
Brass, walnut wood, Bluetooth sound system, sound
28 x 28 x 52 cm, 20 minutes (looped)

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.

Overview

Rushdi Anwar draws from his personal experience as a Kurdish refugee and survivor of state violence to contemplate issues of displacement and trauma
endured as a result of colonial and ideological regimes. Anwar presents several bodies of work, collectively titled A Hope and Peace to End All Hope and Peace (2023–ongoing), which investigate the enduring influence of the Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916), a French-British- led foreign strategy on the promise of the downfall of the Ottoman Empire dividing the West Asian region into European-dominated colonies. Combining sculpture, audio, archival photographs, maps and documents, the works lay bare the farce of history, connecting
the past to present conditions of geopolitics in the region.