This installation made up of sculpture, light and sound meditates on the discovery of the Baba Gurgur oil well in a region now disputed by Iraq and Kurdistan. The central...
This installation made up of sculpture, light and sound meditates on the discovery of the Baba Gurgur oil well in a region now disputed by Iraq and Kurdistan. The central sculpture takes the form of a Salvia Spinosa, a flower which exists in abundance in the area of Baba Gurgur. A sound work that is melodically Kurdish but lyrically English is drawn from material found in the National Archives and the BP archive. The ‘Sun’ element that lights the piece is reminiscent of the sun in the wake of ISIS bombing the Qayyarah oil fields. The piece embodies the symbolic cultural history of Baba Gurgur, which as an eternally burning flame had great importance to locals before a significant oil field was discovered in the 1920s. Wahid approaches oil as the symbol through which nationalism, statelessness, colonialism and Kurdish identity can be explored. The machinations of the oil industry, of colonial exploitation, of thwarted national ambitions of the Kurds are intertwined in the work.