Henasa - 2012

These photos are a representation of the last moments before people died during the Iraqi Baath regime's chemical air attack against the Kurds and their genocide by Saddam Hussein. During the Iran-Iraq war, my hometown Marivan and most of the cities of Kurdistan, which is located on the border of these two countries, were heavily bombed by Iraqi warplanes. I was only a few years old at the time and I can hardly remember it, but I have a feeling of fear from that time that even after many years I feel anxious when I hear the sound of airplanes and helicopters in the city. The things I barely remember are the nightmarish, vague, ghostly, red, dark feeling of fear. In this collection, I have tried to use this experience and my personal feeling for representation. Also, for these photos, I have tried to refer to the victims whose photos have become the symbol of this crime against humanity. Omar Khavar is one of them who shows the photo taken of him and his child while he was holding his child and both of them died due to the inhalation of chemical gases in the most tragic way possible. Henase means "to breathe" in Kurdish.