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Join us at the artist talk and reception for Derealization: Kurdistan, Art & Memory, an exhibition presented in partnership with Artisans Asylum.
Enjoy snacks & drinks while you make & see art with community members and local artists!
Guests will:
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Hear the inspiration and stories behind Kamal Ahmad's artwork, presented in conversation with Ahmad and sculptor Jeffrey Nowlin.
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Meet Artisans Asylum's Executive Director, Antonio Viva, as he highlights the creative offerings at Allston's newest (& largest!) makerspace for do-it-yourself ("DIY") fabrication.
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Learn the Kurdish practice of hand-making clove-apples (called sêva mêxekrê) as a symbol of love, life, and peace. Guests will add their fragrant fruit to the exhibit.
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Network with artists, makers, entrepreneurs and students.
This reservation includes food, drinks, art-making workshop, artists' talk and networking.
About the Exhibit
Explore connections between people, memory, and place at the Crossings Gallery from January 19–February 23. Decades of war in Iraq and Syria have left towns razed with people trapped in collapsed buildings, innumerable lives and memories lost in the fragments. Combining large scale sculptures and paintings, Ahmad reflects on his personal experience with the destruction of constant war and rebuilds like an artist can—with feeling, imagination, and reverence.
Meet Kamal Ahmad
Kamal Ahmad is an artist, critical thinker, educator, and curator born in Sulaymaniyah, Kurdistan who lives and works in Boston, Massachusetts. His multi-disciplinary visual artwork — a combination of painting, sculpture, video, printmaking and design — is inspired by Ahmad’s early life and experiences. His work has appeared at galleries and museums including MassMOCA, Boston Sculptors Gallery, MUSA Gallery, and Piano Craft Gallery.
Ahmad is currently the Art & Facilities Director at Artisans Asylum, Curator & Director for Piano Craft Gallery, and a Curator & Art Consultant for Fountain Street Gallery as well as the vice president of New England Sculptors Association.