The following text and the biography of Serhad Bapir are included in the two-fold handout which was printed and distributed during his exhibition (March 6-29, 2019) at the Vafopoulio Intellectual Centre, Thessaloniki, Greece.
Our real homeland is said to be our childhood. By childhood
we mean the life we have experienced in a place, where our parents’ home, our
hometown, the place where we were born and raised, plays the main role.
In the early 19th century the big, powerful
countries divided and shared the world to their own benefit, without considering
the people’s needs, their national and religious distinctiveness. People of
many nations were initially partitioned and found themselves in the various
colonies of the big and powerful countries only to consist, later on, the
independent countries. Unfortunately, the Kurds were deprived of their
indisputable right in self-determination, in a free and independent Kurdistan.
Some people are born in a free nation/country; some others
are born as children of a subjected nation, of a religious or a national
minority. No one can either select his parents or decide whether to be born in
an independent, democratic, flourishing country or a country separated in 4
pieces and divided with barbed wire and mine fields, occupied by four
countries, where the teaching of their mother tongue is forbidden, as in the
case of the Kurds and Kurdistan. No one can choose where to be born, however he
can fight for all the above. This is what the Kurds do, just like so many
people in other countries.
In this fight for dignity and the indisputable right of
self-determination, dozens of Kurdish towns, like Kobani, Şıngal, Sûr, Cızir,
Xurmatû, Εfrin and thousands of villages have been torn down by
ISIS and the Turkish and Iranian countries within the last four years. Millions
of people have been uprooted from their ancestral hearth.
It is said that borders divide people, and that sounds
good. Those who think of it bear in mind the boundaries of independent
nations-countries and seem to disregard the case of people who have not
accomplished to create their own country yet. In this case, the lack of
national boundaries makes things tragic.
I’m talking about the case of the Kurds and Kurdistan.
Though there are historical, demographic and natural boundaries, Kurdistan is
occupied and divided in four parts, among four dictatorships (Turkey, Iran,
Iraq and Syria). That’s the reason why there are no official boundaries between
Kurdistan and other neighbouring countries. On the contrary, the boundaries of
those neighbours have been placed upon the body of Kurdistan and have split the
Kurds themselves.
The Kurds, who fight for their freedom, are often chased;
even chemical weapons are used against them, they often trespass these unfair
boundaries, which divide their country, and are forced to become refugees in
their own fatherland.
This section of my work is focused on this issue: to depict
the Kurds who fight. Moreover to depict borders preventing Kurds from acquiring
their national unity; inhabited areas which are being destroyed, military
outposts on borders watching this outrage, whereas far away, across the skyline
the sea, and old ships are waiting to lead some people down to their “wet
grave” or an unknown future as refugees 6/3/2019
Serhad Bapir
Serhad Bapir was born in 1964 in Tetwan, Kurdistan. In 1984
he escaped to Greece, where he stayed as a political refugee. He received a
scholarship from Institute Kurde De
Paris for his studies from 1985 to 1992. From 1987 to 1992 he studied at the
Faculty of Fine Arts in the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and attended
the workshops of professors D. Kontos and V. Demetrea. From 2001 to 2007 he
also studied evgraving (second degree) at the same Faculty with professor X.
Sahinis.
The exhibition will run until March 29, 2019.
Days - Opening Hours: Monday to Friday 17.00 - 21.00
Saturday: 9.00 - 14.00
Vafopouleio Cultural Center: 3, G. Vapopoulou street, 546 46 Thessaloniki, tel .: 2310 424 132-3
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