SADIK ALFRAJI’S WORK AT STEDELIJK MUSEUM
The series of works by Alfraji is part of an ongoing project, in which he traces a story of the displacement of himself and his family.
Sadik Alfraji, installation view, Stedelijk Museum
Source: The artistSADIK ALFRAJI’S WORK AT STEDELIJK MUSEUM
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SADIK ALFRAJI’S WORK AT STEDELIJK MUSEUM
The story is told through animation, graphic diaries, and a sound-drawing installation. The installation, titled Sing like the Southerners Do, is accompanied by traditional Southern Iraqi mawāwīl (an Arabic music genre), sung by Salman Al-Mankoub, about life, farewell, ruins, love, death, and dreams; the drawings also include Alfraji’s handwritten transcription of some of the lyrics. The notebooks contain a semi-imaginary dialogue in which the artist converses with his own thoughts as well as the two older family generations on histories, part of which he hasn’t experienced firsthand. In this manner, Alfraji poetically narrates a multilayered story while placing together contradicting notions of melancholy, deprivation, and loss mingled with emotions of nostalgia, hope, and desire. As a group, the works deal with what’s beyond the surface image of migration and question the inevitable cross-cultural influences on cultural identity and intergenerational memory.
Sadik Alfraji, “Sing like the Southerners Do,” 2019, sound-drawing installation. Courtesy the artist.
Source: The artist
SADIK ALFRAJI’S WORK AT STEDELIJK MUSEUM
The River That Was in the South and Sing like the Southerners Do (both 2019–2020) depict the first chapter of a migratory journey, with Alfraji’s grandfather’s family having to leave their home near the Erfaya’a river in the Mesopotamian Marshes to flee the oppression of a feudal system and seek a decent life. The second chapter illustrates further repeated displacements of his father’s generation inside Iraq and the margins of Baghdad. Later, due to Saddam Hussein’s autocracy, the artist had to emigrate to the Netherlands, where begins the third chapter, which he refers to as “At the Edge of Amsterdam City.” The River Books (2019–2020) unveil personal notes that dialectically bind together the three chapters of the journey.
Sadik Alfraji, “The River That Was in the South,” 2019, still image of animation film, 5:05 min., black and white, sound. Courtesy the artist.
Source: The artist
