CURATOR’S NOTE ON THE VIDEO LOUNGE «RETHREADING WEAVES» In «Rethreading Weaves», the artworks have a thematic use of threads. This is highlighted because it speaks of my own experience with threads, strings, and crafting. The threads represent a line that connects me to my mother and my mother to her mother. Threads and strings have long been used by women to fix and amend things. Things that are overlooked. I occasionally feel women in art and their artworks that revolve around womanhood are perceived as the same role of the threads, «things that one must address». In my culture, reusing materials was an awareness practised by women. My grandmother never had waste, it was always reused into daily things. This connection emerged intuitively with these artworks. They use threads as different gestures and this relates to my connection with womanhood.
Choosing Kurdish women is speaking of my intent to create exposure to art I consider great that feels overlooked. I want to bring audiences to new dimensions, to create arguments and discussions regarding art from different backgrounds that can formulate into new ideas, to represent a new dialog. This exchange is further highlighted by SONIC MATTER’s vision of presenting me with a guest curator role. I believe it is significant to seize the opportunity for the sake of perspective.
These artworks are mainly focused on sound, but come from different art mediums of animation, dance and performance. This is significant because I experimented with collecting them in a way that fuses different mediums of artworks in one space, to create grounds that makes setting mediums apart difficult, which leads to experiencing art as it is and to exploring new depth that lays beyond the presumptions that are included with the understanding of mediums.
Artists from different understandings are connected in using sound as an element of their artworks. They all reuse; Raz reuses her records, Niga is tuning in for a canceled artwork in themes of remaking against obliteration and Sarina reuses scarves from women to help create the settings of her challenging dance. They all defy the narrative that is assigned to them as women and redefine it in new ways. This doesn’t particularly speak to narratives set by men or authority – but rather narratives as human beings. That sets the personal layer of the artworks. Because they are intimate expressions from each artists’ interactions of defiance.
Niga Salam ABOUT THE ARTWORKS OF THE VIDEO LOUNGE «RETHREADING WEAVES» «Rethreading Weaves» brings together three audiovisual artworks by Kurdish women artists, each exploring the intersections of identity, memory, struggle in parallel to the theme of remaking. This exhibition dives into the ways women’s experiences and histories can be presented through materials that are deeply personal, whether through sound, everyday objects, scarves or the very fabric of cultural tradition.
The three artists in this show reuse and repurpose materials that carry specific cultural and gendered significance. In doing so, they re-thread personal and collective memories, weaving together themes of heritage, struggle, and self-expression.
In Raz Karaman’s «My Roots in Her Echoes», the artist offers an intimate exploration of her identity through an animation loop, accompanied by a layered soundscape of recorded diary tapes. The diaries, containing echoes of past experiences, become a bridge between the artist’s past and present, tracing the roots of her identity in the vibrations of memory. The animated imagery and overlapping sounds create a space where time and selfhood intertwine, reflecting on the ways in which personal histories shape oneself today.
«Threading, weaves & re-» is an artwork by Niga Salam – the curator of the video lounge. It presents an audio of ropes, strings, and threads snapping. With a contrast visual of said material being tied back together. This artwork directly explores ties of womanhood and stands as replacement of another artwork made by another Kurdish woman artist who had to cancel participating in this exhibition last minute for personal matters. This process of facing hardships and uncertainty is one of many factors creating challenges for Kurdish women artists. Here the artist is filling in for another, showing the process of what it means to strive and work as a woman artist. Constantly remaking ties that are cut against one’s knowledge in an attempt to reach out to each other, connect, and explore womanhood.
The third artwork, «On My Way» by Sarina Panahideh, presents a performance that spans four frames, showing the artist and another woman engaged in an intense, ritualistic act of covering the artist’s head with ropes and scarves. The artist’s struggle to breathe, combined with the gradual process of undressing and untying, speaks to the tension between personal agency and external constraints. As the artist moves into dance, shedding the restrictive layers, the work becomes a liberating act of reclaiming both the body and one’s identity. The sound of her breath underscores the visceral experience of resistance and freedom.
Together, these works challenge the viewer to consider the ways in which women’s identities are shaped by history, culture, and personal experience. They also highlight the resilience of women who, through art, reclaim and reframe the materials of their lives, transforming them into powerful expressions of self and resistance.
Niga Salam | 