‘Endless Tears in the Garden of Eden’ is an exhibition that explores Rushdi Anwar’s personal experiences, reflections, and memories as an indigenous member of Kurdistan, one of the world’s oldest and largest stateless nations.
Three key subjects are central to this solo show. Firstly, the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, a colonial document designed by Britain and France that senselessly divided this ‘Middle East’ into a continuing oil-fuelled chaos. Secondly, the human agents that History debates and recalls as the champions of Kurdish culture and its sovereignty, such as Hoshyar Byawelaiy, a Kurd committed to the single-handed demining of Kurdish land today. Thirdly, the mimicry of colonial methodologies of terror– from British poster propaganda to Saddam Hussein’s chemical attacks to ISIS brutality–a landscape, both human and non-human, suffering mass displacement and destruction that continues to be ravaged by proxy wars and religious extremism today.
The sculptures, installations, sounds, and moving images in this exhibition investigate these occurrences, embracing such materials as hand-woven rugs, photographs and historical texts, hand-touched prints, filmic documentary, historical radio propaganda, and more.
The biblical ‘Garden of Eden’ continues to be mired in the deceit of humanity, for this paradise is claimed to begin in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers basin of ancient Mesopotamia, in what today is understood covers much of Kurdistan, the Middle East.
‘Endless Tears in the Garden of Eden’ is the artist’s first solo show in London, UK, at Ab-Anbar Gallery.