About this Event
Discover the stories and processes behind the making of the exhibition at The Heong Gallery.
About the Exhibition
For Issam Kourbaj, home means many things. It is the womb, skin, or clothes as much as it is a tent, a house, or a nation. Like exiles and émigrés everywhere, Kourbaj has had to redefine ‘home’ for himself whenever he has felt the old definitions shift. Home, in one conventional sense, is Cambridge, where, since 1990, Kourbaj has lived, practised, and raised a family. Home is also Syria: Suweida, where he was born, and Damascus, where he painted the city gates across the Barada river. Like millions of migrants, Kourbaj is always away from home, even when he is at home - there is always another place of belonging. In Kourbaj’s case, this other home - the first home - is lost behind the shroud of war. While he works in the studio behind his Cambridge home, Kourbaj makes the journey back to Syria, daily, with his hands.
The exhibition at The Heong Gallery assembles works spanning the thirteen years of the ongoing Syrian conflict, responding to the trauma of displacement and migration. It explores the dual loss of exile, the loss of home as well as the loss of self.
A concurrent exhibition of work by Issam Kourbaj is taking place at Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge.
About Dr Prerona Prasad
Since 2016, Prerona has worked at The Heong Gallery, developing and managing exhibitions of modern and contemporary art. The first exhibition she curated for the Gallery was Larger than Life: Dame Elisabeth Frink (Nov 2017-Feb 2018). This was followed by Halfboy: Stuart Pearson Wright, Kip Gresham: The Art of Collaboration, We Are Here: Women in Art at Cambridge Colleges, Quentin Blake: 40 Women for Downing, Of the Earth: Contemporary Ceramics and Glass from The Fitzwilliam Museum, Lucy Van Pelt: Director of Everything, Gavin Turk: In Search of Ariadne, and Soheila Sokhanvari: We Could Be Heroes...
Access Information
The Heong Gallery has step-free access and is fully accessible by wheelchair. You are free sit down or leave the tour at any time. The Heong Gallery has step-free access and is fully accessible by wheelchair. If you have any other access requirements, do let us know. You are free sit down or leave the tour at any time. The tour will last approximately 40 minutes.
Photos by Tomos Davies. (c) Issam Kourbaj, 2024.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
The Heong Gallery, Downing College, Cambridge, United Kingdom
GBP 0.00