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EUROARABIA. Extremism is a threat to freedom

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Paris

Euroarabia is an art project in space by Julia Curyło and Liza Sherzai, made in 2014. It was first presented at the Sabanci University in Istanbul last November, what followed the teaser of the project in London (Tate Britain and Victoria Station, October).  The main motifs of Euroarabia are intercultural dialogue, migration and criticism of extremism, which, in any form, provides a threat to freedom. After the latest events in Paris, murders caused by fanaticism, Euroarabia became even more actual, as well as avant garde faith in the prophetic role of art.

Installation consists of fifteen large-scale inflatable sculptures (130 x 220cm) of Matrioshka dolls wearing afghan burkas and placed on the rose wreaths, which are a symbol of Eastern Europe. The burkas are covered with words in Persian, English and French. They refer to the human rights, women’s rights, refusal to extremism and the political use of religion.

Traditionally Matrioshka is a Russian doll – colorful image of a girl in a folk floral or striped dress, stereotypical in its idea of pretty faced, big eyed healthy village woman with red chicks. Dolls by Curyło and Sherzai have nothing of that cheerful peasant carelessness. They are overwhelmed by the black burkas, symbols of the modern slavery of women, being at the same time the grotesque or even absurd figures and scary fairytale creatures introducing a lot of discomfort to the viewer. The depressing black color is only interfered by the colorful wreaths and sentences and the vivid female eyes – full of hope and determination to fight against any kind of extremism regardless of the heavy physical cover of the burka.

Sherzai, who these days lives in Warsaw, Poland, is of Afghan origin. Warsaw artist’s Curyło family was displaced to central Poland from “kresy”, the region that is today part of Belarus. Because of the cultural, as well as personal issues, the migration is deeply written into the Euroarabia project, underlining the complicated clashes between cultural, religious and historical background of the world of “Islam” and the “West”.

            Another part of the project are photos picturing both artists wearing white burkas covered with flowers, which is a symbol of their attempt to domesticate and tame the sinister fabric as well as to dialogue extremism.

 

 

Contact Information: 

Ewa Sułek / curator
Wrocław City Gallery Foundation
+48 602 592 135
ewa.sulek@galeriamiejska.pl
www.artgalleryfoundation.pl 

Wrocław

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