NEWS: Jala Wahid – Conflagration @ BALTIC

Image: Installation view, Jala Wahid, Sophie Tappeiner, Frieze. Photo by Tim Bowditch

Working with sculpture, film, sound, writing and installation, Jala Wahid’s Conflagration (her first solo show at the BALTIC, opening on Saturday 22^nd October) is an enthrallingly innovative multi-disciplinary exploration of themes as broad and urgent as nationhood, diasporic living in the UK, cultural identity, migration, cultural traditions and intergenerational connections.

Wahid seeks to explore the relationship between Britain and Kurdistan, taking inspiration from the vast London Kurdish Cultural Centre’s archive as a means to go beyond binary understandings of colonialism, to better and deeper articulate the problematics of nationalism within a stateless people. It’s an exhibition that also seeks to educate on the staggering impact that the discovery of the Baba Gurgur oil well, which culminated in the formation of new nation states, and a damaging monopoly in the region’s oil resources.

It’s another innovative step forward from the renowned artist, who, since graduating from Goldsmiths in 2014, has gone on to exhibit her work prolifically, from London to New York, constantly using her creative expressions as a means to more deeply explore topical and historic issues affecting marginalised communities the world over, with the works contained within Conflagration being a compelling and boundary-pushing affirmation of her singular approach and voice.

Jala Wahid: Conflagration is at BALTIC, Gateshead from Saturday 22^nd October-Sunday 30^th April 2023.