Issam Kourbaj - Urgent Archive at Kettles Yard, Cambridge

Issam Kourbaj - Our exile grows a day longer and a day closer is our return (detai1)

 

Kettles Yard in Cambridge has been showing an exhibition by Issam Koubaj, entitled Urgent Archive.  Kourbaj's art is inspired by his home country of Syria and its continuing conflict and other conflicts in the Middle East.  He reflects on the suffering of his fellow Syrians and the destruction of his cultural heritage.  Since the Syrian uprisings of 2011 Issam Kourbaj’s artwork has taken many forms and here's a flavour of it all.

The two artworks shown below - "Abundant, No Abandoned" & "Don't Wash Your Hands: Before the Quake, Aleppo City and Citadel", use materials that Kourbaj associates with Syria.  The map - "Abundant, No Abandoned" is created from indigo pigment which he, as a child in the late 1960s, smeared on their windows in southern Syria to act as a blackout so that the Israeli planes would not detect them as they flew overhead on their way to bomb nearby areas of Jordan and Palestine.  The map itself shows the "dead cities" of north west Syria.  His choice of title suggests the existence of extremes - abundance and abandonment. "Don't Wash Your Hands: Before the Quake, Aleppo City and Citadel" is created from Aleppo soap...

Issam Kourbaj - Abundant, No Abandoned & Don't Wash Your Hands: Before the Quake, Aleppo City and Citadel

In "Blue Blackout" you can see the use of indigo pigment smeared on a window.  Here he is using it to draw our attention to people in the Middle East trapped in cycles of war and violence...

Issam Kourbaj - Blue Blackout

Kourbaj, reflecting on the survival of Syrian women in times of war, adds a new piece to "Agony: 156 moons and counting", with every month that passes since the start of the Syrian conflict.  He points out that women, being less able to flee conflict than men, have to remain to look after their homes and families...

Issam Kourbaj - Agony: 156 moons and counting

This work, "Killed, Detained and Missing (Women)", contains the handwritten names of Syrian women who have been killed, detained or are missing as part of the conflict in Syria.  They are written on a pianola scroll.  This is to emphasise how women's experience of war goes under reported...

Issam Kourbaj - Killed, Detained and Missing (Women) - detail

"All But Milk" contains shelves of baby bottles containing anything but nourishing milk.  It is a reference to the suffering of the children in Gaza and the need for a ceasefire...

Issam Kourbaj - All but Milk

Issam Kourbaj - All But Milk Inventory

In "Our exile grows a day longer and a day closer is our return", every day since the start of the Syrian conflict is marked with a  date stone stitched to a found canvas tent (see also first image above). The number of stones (4750), and the scale of the piece, emphasises the trauma of the conflict and of exile but offers hope for a time of return...

Issam Kourbaj - Our exile grows a day longer and a day closer is our return

"Damascus, Fragile City I", made from old book pages coated in wax, was one of the first works Issam Koubaj made when the uprising in Syria started and serves as an abstracted map to reflect the destruction of homes and communities in Damascus...

Issam Kourbaj - Damascus, Fragile City I 

Issam Kourbaj - Damascus, Fragile City I - detail

There is a wealth of different media and meaning in this exhibition and it is well worth a visit...

Issam Kourbaj - Fallen Springs

Unfortunately it closes on Sunday 26 May 2024 so you'll have to be super quick to get there.  Do go if you can!

Kettle's Yard House, Cambridge

Kettle's Yard House - Entrance

I discovered this little gem on a recent trip to Cambridge.  I can't believe I've never found it before especially as I used to live in Cambridge.  On the edge of the city centre, it is tucked away behind Kettle's Yard gallery which has changing exhibitions throughout the year.
 

View of Kettle's Yard House from the Gallery

Now owned by Cambridge University, it was the home of Jim Ede from the late 50s until the early 70s.  Jim was a curator at the Tate Gallery, London in the 1920s & 1930s and as a result met and befriended many artists.  Over the years he amassed an astonishing collection of 20th century art.  I've never seen so many paintings by Alfred Wallis (a personal favourite)!  They are displayed without labels throughout his house amongst his collections of natural objects and other works of applied art.  It is kept largely as it was when he lived there with his wife, Helen.  You are encouraged to sit in the chairs and see the art as he would have viewed it. It is a personal curation of his taste over a particular period displayed how he wished it to be experienced.  There are works by Ben & Winifred Nicholson, Christoper Wood, Willian Congdon, Joan Miro, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Italo Valenti, Henri Moore, Barbara Hepworth & others.  

There's also an amazing spiral of almost spherical pebbles that came from a beach in Norfolk - I want to go there too!

It's fantastic, it's free and on Fridays one of the grand pianos is used for lunchtime concerts.

Kettle's Yard Gallery

If that's not enough you can pop across the courtyard and take a look in Kettle's Yard Gallery and shop.  The current exhibition is Beauty and Revolution: The Poetry and Art of Ian Hamilton Finlay

This place is a gem - go see!