Napahtha Maqam — Owen Pratt

Conflagration is Jala Wahid first institutional solo exhibition and presents a new body of work exploring the relationship between Britain and Kurdistan, through the lens of oil. The installation approaches oil as the symbolic material through which nationalism, statelessness, colonialism and Kurdish identity are explored. It is grounded in the discovery of the Baba Gurgur oil well, following a time during which Britain and France politically occupied Mesopotamia, culminating in the formation of new nation states in the region’s oil resources.

In Conflagration, Wahid invites us to step into a landscape conceived as an inferno. It is unclear whether we’re beneath the ground in an oil well, amidst the burning refineries, or within columns of smoke resulting from gushers or oil fires during conflict and war.

The light sculpture titled Sick Pink Sun (03:00 14.10.1927) commemorates the precise moment the first well in the Baba Gurgur field was struck and points to an unknowable future in the wake of the oil industry. Until 1948, Baba Gurgur was considered the largest oil field in the world. It is situated in the Kirkuk province, a region disputed between Federal Iraq and the Kurdistan Region. This history and current politics are explored through Naphtha Maqam, a sound work created from archival material found in the National Archives and the British Petroleum archives. Wahid has collaborated with producer Owen Pratt and Amal Saeed Kurda, a well-known contemporary Kurdish singer/composer, to produce an hour long series of funereal maqams, melodically Kurdish but lyrically English.

First exhibited in 2023 at The Baltic, Gateshead and then at the Tramway, Glasgow.

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