On the Night of Separation, I Wanted to Tell You Something: Êvar Huseynî and WANAWAL

Drawing on a Kurdish feminist approach to listening as an active political gesture, the exhibition considers how shared practices of expression and gathering can sustain cultural memory and affirm identities in the face of suppression and criminalisation.

Taking its title from a poem written by the artist’s father, the exhibition brings together personal archives and a selection of materials from the West Asian and North African Women’s Art Library (WANAWAL), founded by Huseynî in 2019. Based at Somerset House Studios, WANAWAL is grounded in a commitment to collective memory as a liberatory practice. The library and experimental archive, create a dialogue between Kurdish feminist thought and wider West Asian and North African histories, recognising these connections as essential to opposing the colonial frameworks that shape practices of memory and remembrance.

The artworks and materials presented in G31 reflect Huseynî’s interest in sound as both a record of political struggle and a vessel for memory. The artist presents a newly produced film and musical composition created in collaboration with Kurdish harpist Tara Jaff, alongside an installation of family photographs, archival sound and ephemera. Materials from the WANAWAL collection trace how sonic expression and documentation can articulate forms of solidarity, connecting histories, experiences and geographies.