Photo exhibition in Oslo: Women in exile

Many people are involved in migration, but some more than others. Communities like the Kurds are spread out over many countries and diaspora is part of their daily lives. In this exhibition, photographers explore how living in exile, or living a life of alienation on one’s own land, impacts women. By turning the lens on Norway, but also on the homeland Kurdistan, the pictures shed new light on women’s experiences of daily life during and after conflict.

 

The exhibition shows three series of photographs: women as new citizens after their arrival in Norway, women as activists, and women who work in their homeland. The series explore the themes of womanhood, otherness, empowerment, and resilience in a context of insecurity, escape and new homelands for a dispersed community. They show the multidimensional and layered aspects of Kurdish women’s lives and activisms in Norway, and therewith evoke the audience to develop new insights and imaginations about (immigrant and Muslim) women’s lives.

 

The photographers are Iffit Qureshi, Benyamin Farnam, and Kurdish female photographers who were invited to portray Kurdish women and their professional lives in Kurdistan. The three different series complement and talk to each other. They question prejudices about women from the Middle East and show the many facets of citizenship and activism exercised by women. The images encourage to imagine what it means to escape from conflict and build up a life elsewhere, and what it means to be far away and still connected to a ‘motherland’. They touch the heart, inspire, and give rise to new imaginations.

 

The series were made in cooperation with and supported by the academic research of Wendelmoet Hamelink (University of Oslo) and the ALCITfem research team. The third series (Women, Life, Freedom. Kurdish women's work through the eyes of Kurdish female photographers) was first exhibited opened in the Asia and Pacific Museum in Warsaw in Autumn 2023.

 

The exhibition is free and open to all. You can visit the exhibition during Gamle Munch's opening hours from the 9th to the 31st of March.