Artist talk | Aziz Hazara
On the occasion of the finissage of his exhibition 'Bow Echo', artist Aziz Hazara will visit S.M.A.K. to talk about this special collection piece.
In the first part of the program, the Afghan artist will engage in conversation with S.M.A.K. collection expert Thibaut Verhoeven about the creation of Bow Echo and the context within which the work came about. Afterwards, he will give a short lecture on his upcoming project Coming Home, on display this autumn at the SculptureCenter in New York.
In Coming Home, Aziz Hazara expresses subtle criticism of the US-led NATO occupation of Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021. During this period, the US military built a kind of suburban enclave, complete with fast-food chains, recreation centers, and more around Bagram Airfield near Kabul. With this project, Hazara reclaims leftover material abandoned there after the abrupt withdrawal of the US military, and puts it on display again in the country of origin.
- Sunday 13.Sep.2026 at 15:00
- Auditorium, S.M.A.K.
- Language: English
- Free entry, but book your place via reservation@smak.be
Aziz Hazara (b. 1992, Wardak, Afghanistan) lives and works in Kabul and Berlin. Through photography, video, sound, text, programming language, and installations, the artist explores themes such as identity, memory, archive, conflict, occupation, and migration. He does this not unilaterally from an Afghan perspective, but from a broader geopolitical viewpoint.
The video installation Bow Echo (2019) shows five young Afghan boys braving a fierce wind while climbing a large rock. Once at the top of the rock, they play a kazoo, a simple wind instrument with a nasal sound. The contrast between the harsh weather conditions on the high plateau around Kabul and the shrill sound of the kazoo forms a poetic metaphor for the population's resistance to the war in Afghanistan.
