What do we do with what is broken

Participated in a group exhibition curated by Pooja Poudel as part of the Curatorial Intensive South Asia 2025, organized by Khoj Studios in collaboration with the Goethe-Institute / Max Mueller Bhavan. The exhibition brought together five artists whose practices engage with brokenness as both a lived condition and a method—across memory, identity, relationships, and social structures.

 

The works explored how experiences of rupture, loss, and fragmentation are carried, inherited, and negotiated within everyday life, questioning what is preserved, what is discarded, and how new meanings can emerge from what remains incomplete.

 

Presented Wailing, a sound-based work rooted in a traditional Kurdish vocal practice historically performed by women as a means of expressing grief and processing loss. Each wailing carries an individual story shaped by personal and collective experiences of violence, displacement, and injustice.

 

The work reflects on the gradual disappearance of this practice due to conflict, political fragmentation, and cultural and religious suppression, particularly restrictions placed on women’s voices. Through sound, the piece creates a space for listening, memory, and emotional release, while addressing themes of cultural erasure, resilience, and the possibility of rebuilding from what has been broken.