Selma Selman: 600 Years of Migrant Mothers
About this activity.
Kunsthuis SYB is pleased to present 600 Years of Migrant Mothers, a new solo exhibition by Selma Selman, taking place in Beetsterzwaag and Leeuwarden. The exhibition consists of a new series of paintings, films, sound pieces, and ongoing research material, and is co-commissioned by two Frisian institutions: Kunsthuis SYB and Arcadia. One part is on view at Kunsthuis SYB in Beetsterzwaag, the other in Leeuwarden as part of the exhibition Paradys.
The exhibition is part of a larger research project by Selman, in which she delves into her “foremothers,” going back six hundred years in her family lineage. Selman aims to give a face to the women from whom she descends. Women who have helped shape her into who she is today, but who themselves often remain invisible. The project addresses the intimate bond between knowledge and power, who has access to their foremothers, the artist asks? And how does that access constitute power dynamics on a broader political spectrum?
Selman explores how stories shared around the kitchen table are often forgotten and inaccessible to current generations, particularly for people embedded in marginalized communities. Genealogy, the practice of gathering, storing, and sharing information about family relations, is an area of knowledge where the feminist dictum “the personal is political” becomes clearly evident. For Selman, unpacking female family lineage means unpacking years of displacement of Roma communities in Southeast Europe, in cities such as Prishtina, Sarajevo and Bihać, where primarily male lineage is valued and celebrated. She embarks on an effort to trace generations of mothers, both real and fictional, combining feminist strategies of fictional genealogy with historical research and interviews. Her work is an effort to visualize women between borders, ghosts that come in a dream and speak in a language one no longer understands but recognizes. Faces encountered in moments of joy and despair; names on graves in cities far from one’s current home; and long hair extending into reality from a fictional future.
The artworks have a haunting quality. A group of women of different generations are immortalized in a large metal diptych where an eyeless self portrait of the artist receives their sight. Books, drawings, film footage and sounds gathered around graveyards where Roma people are buried, coexist with scenes from a wedding. When facts are missing or deliberately erased, imagination becomes a weapon to reconstruct the blind spots, and can offer a point of contact with the future. Can we visualize what the world could or should look like from the perspective of the displaced female?
600 Years of Migrant Mothers is Selma Selman’s first solo exhibition in the bilingual region of Friesland, presented in curatorial dialogue with Arnisa Zeqo and Hans den Hartog Jager. The project includes research into Roma communities in Prishtina conducted by Blerta Ismaili and the CHwB Kosovo.
Kunsthuis SYB.
Location.
Kunsthuis SYB
Hoofdstraat 70
9244CP Beetsterzwaag
www.kunsthuissyb.nl/