To the Land of the Waqwaq
As artist-in-residence, LA-based, Iraq-born artist Hayv Kahraman created site-specific works of art for the Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design. Hayv Kahraman explores themes of gender, memory and exile through her paintings and sculptures.
To the Land of the Waqwaq I (2019) by Hayv Kahraman Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design
To The Land of the Waqwaq I
This work, Kahraman states, subverts "...the male-centric depiction of women in medieval texts by having the women detach themselves from the tree by cutting their own hair. This then becomes a gesture of emancipation from the male voice and a re-existence of the feminine." Rather than the passive ripening of the "woman-fruit" be the prompt of a short-lived, sexually-available existence followed by a quick death, the depiction of self-plucking, achieved with the active help of other women, is instead the birth of life and independence. The shimmering golden scissors, a gesture to the fabled wealth of the Waqwaq islands, re-imagines the act of cutting and the violence that is done to women. Her hair is not shorn in shame or as punishment, but by choice in freedom.
Hayv speaking about her artist residency at Shangri La
To the Land of the Waqwaq II
"Koko Crater is also known as Kohelepelepe, 'labia minor' in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi (the Hawaiian language). It comes from a story in which Kapo, one of the sisters of the goddess Pele, had a magical 'flying vulva' that she could send anywhere. When Kamapuaʻa, the pig god, tried to rape Pele, Kapo came to help her. She distracted Kamapuaʻa by throwing her vulva to Koko Head, where it made the crater." - Hayv Kahraman
The inherent sexual gaze of the male narrators of the Waqwaq islands and tree-as well as their explicit exhortations that the women-fruit are available for sex in the brief period between their ripening and death-focuses on a reductive and predatory reading of the disposable woman/vulva. Here Kahraman refocuses attention on women as agents of their own deliverance and of their sisters.
To the Land of the Waqwaq III (2019) by Hayv Kahraman Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design
To the Land of the Waqwaq III
Here the story of the Waqwaq tree is merged with the story of the Hawaiian goddess Kapo, who throws her detachable vulva as bait to help release her sister. Hawaiian mythology is heavy on using the landscape as a metaphor for various narratives.
The conflation of two seemingly disparate traditions-of the Waqwaq and of Kapo-achieve a seamless understanding. Women are freed from the Waqwaq and active agents in the act of liberation. She confronts the viewer directly, post-plucking, with the tree-like topographic map of Kohelepelepe (Koko Crater) in the background.
About the Artist: Hayv Kahraman
Shangri La Artist-in-Residence March 16-31, 2019. Los Angeles-based Hayv Kahraman (b. 1981; Baghdad, Iraq) explores themes of gender, memory, and exile through her paintings and sculptures. She weaves, tears, and reworks materials into artworks that gesture to traditions found in Europe and Asia, and the nature of agency and corporeality. Her exhibition of artworks inspired by the Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture and Design - "To the Land of the Waqwaq" - was on view at the museum from March 29-August 31, 2019 and ran concurrently with an exhibition of additional work, "Superfluous Bodies," in Gallery 10 at the Honolulu Museum of Art (March 23-August 4, 2019).
Hayv Kahraman was a Shangri La artist-in-residence from March 16 - March 31, 2019.
Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design
Honolulu, Hawai'i
Shangri La is a museum for learning about the global culture of Islamic art and design through exhibitions, digital and educational initiatives, public tours and programs, and community partnerships.
Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design is a program of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation through the Doris Duke Foundation For Islamic Art.
