Sadik Kwaish Alfraji: Artist Q&A

Moderated by Rachel Dedman

Hayy Cinema 2

7-9pm

This special session at Hayy Cinema brings together a curated selection of Alfraji’s filmic works, expanding on the themes of the ‘Jameel Prize: Moving Image’ exhibition.

Known for his stark, black-and-white aesthetic and deeply philosophical narratives, Alfraji’s films function as visual poems that navigate the terrain of exile, the persistence of memory, and the internal geography of globalised mobility. The screening will be followed by an in-depth Q&A moderated by curator Rachel Dedman.

This programme will be delivered in Arabic & English.

Rachel Dedman is a curator and writer based in London. As Jameel Curator of Contemporary Art from the Middle East at the V&A, Rachel curates the triennial Jameel Prize, including exhibitions Poetry to Politics, 2021, and Moving Images, 2024. In 2020 she founded the V&A’s Jameel Fellowship programme, a research residency for contemporary artists. In her independent practice, Rachel specialises in fashion and textiles, and in 2024 was co-curator of the State of Fashion Biennial: Ties that Bind in the Netherlands. Between 2013 and 2019, Rachel was an independent curator based in Lebanon, where she curated projects across the Middle East and Europe. Thread Memory grows out of over a decade of work she has done on Palestinian embroidery and dress, which began as curator for the Palestinian Museum. Her exhibitions on tatreez include At the Seams at Dar El-Nimer, Beirut, 2015, Unravelled at Beirut Art Center, 2016, Labour of Love at the Palestinian Museum,  Birzeit, 2018, and Material Power for Kettle’s Yard and the Whitworth, UK, in 2023/24. She is also the author of three books on this subject. Trained in the history of art at St John’s College, Oxford, and Harvard University, Rachel lectures and teaches worldwide.

Sadik Kwaish Alfraji (b. 1960, Iraq) is an Iraqi-Dutch multimedia artist working in drawing, painting, print, photography, sculpture, video, and animation. He obtained a diploma in Graphic Design from Constantijn Huygens, Kampen, the Netherlands (2000); a BA in Plastic Art and Painting from the Academy of Fine Arts, Baghdad, Iraq (1987); and a diploma in Plastic Art and Painting from the Institute of Fine Arts, Baghdad, Iraq (1982). His work has been presented in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Asia, Europe, and the United States, including at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the Netherlands; the British Museum, London, UK; Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar; the Museum of Islamic Art (MIA), Doha, Qatar; and MoMA PS1, Queens, New York, USA, among others.