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 RESISTING AND SPEAKING TO THE SILENCE: An ongoing visual rage,Khalid Kodi
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RESISTING AND SPEAKING TO THE SILENCE:
An ongoing visual rage,
Khalid Kodi
The visuals of experience and art forms are diverse in my work.
I Create installations that include paintings, drawings, sculptures, and mixed media, and at times incorporate sounds and smells. I also produce some environmental artwork. I examine the gesture-pose between the literary/visual and the conceptual/technical.
I work on issues addressing multi- and cross- cultural concepts. I use
Human phenomena such as wars and genocide, and their impacts on human
societies, as subject matter for my paintings and installations. Through my work I advocate for the victims of war and genocide in the modern Sudan, and redefine these issues in ways that intend to generate both awareness and emotion.
At the same time I present these images visually and conceptually to my own Sudanese community, I also expose these events to the larger international community.
As such, most of my exhibitions are designed to carry outreach and
educational messages, promoting peace, justice and freedom and equality.
For the last ten years I have crossed many cultural barriers by showing
My artwork. Introducing these types of subject matters to the Sudanese
people in such formats has being a challenge for both, myself, as the artist, and the Sudanese people, as the primary viewers.
Being an African living and working in America has allowed me to
interact with my native African society, the Sudanese one, and my new environment, where I am able to communicate elements of both to one another and to the society in large. Furthermore, through my artwork and teaching, I can bring issues of general human concern, to a larger community.
KOUDA:
On February the 8th, 2000, a bomb was dropped into the town of Kouda, a
Sudanese town on the Nuba mountains and landed on a school. Fourteen
Students and their teacher lost their lives. The Sudanese government carries out continuous air raids on the cities and villages of the Nuba mountings and south Sudan. They officially deny bombing civilian targets, but this bombing was caught on tape.
The world, shocked by the event, was introduced to the tragedy by these
Words ofthe exiled Sudanese Bishop, Acream Max Gassis, “For much of the
Outside world, the Children of Kouda are war statistics. But for us, they are more that that: they are persons whose struggle for education in the midst of war itself a sign of extraordinary courage and hope.”
The names of the victims of this attack are;
Roda Ismail, Ruza Dabiel, Munira Khamis, Roda Abdella, William Abdalla,
Munira
Tutu, Kaka Ali, Tabitha Hamdan, Francis Peter, Hamed Yousif, Hyder
Othman, Kubi Yousf, Bashir Ismail, Osama Rajab, Kuri Abdel Gadir.
Kouda, is a 15 foot life size sculpture, with gesture for each one of
The victims. The work is focused on in individualizing the human, so
Researching the ages was essential for the installation, as was researching the cloth that people use. This piece was shown in conjunction with the SSA conference of the same year and later in Boston and Washington.
RESISTING AND SPEAKING TO THE SILENCE:
In this piece, selective visual and performance imageries are designed
To elicit thoughts and emotional responses to the ongoing genocide of the Sudan.
Like words, visual elements have the ability to document events, either
descriptively or fictionally. Unlike most words, however, visual
creations interact with more than our rational knowledge. Visual creations enable us to interact with our inner selves, lead us to experience, rather than just intellectually analyze, the facts, and they activate our senses. Visual experiences rationalize, legitimize, and give form to our feelings.
Resisting the Silence is a protest. It is a protest against the
Mainstream Academia, Sudanists, and the Sudanese elite who choose silence as a response
to the ongoing genocide in the Sudan. It is a protest against Academy’s
tradition of avoiding discussion about the loss of 2 million lives.
In this installation, I visually addressed both the contemporary and
The historical silence. The installation consists of hundreds of life size skulls.
These skulls are from males females, young and old. The skulls are
cast with the types of damage that can occur to as a result of they types of weapons used in the war in Sudan.
The skulls are displayed individually and in groups, spread freely on
floor or gathered into damaged burlap bags.
Some of the skulls have being painted with bright colors, representing
how the killings are presented by some, particularly those doing the killings, as something pretty or attractive.
OUR LEADERS:
After colonialism was defeated by the African local National Heroes,
life for African people went through a dramatic shift, as many of those (African National Heroes) where not very keen leaders. Many of the post colonial National Heroes possessed a political status as well as a religious one.
Traditionally they are like Gods. Many African believed that these post
colonial leaders had supernatural powers. Some of the leaders also
believed the same about themselves, so it is no surprise that some of them became brutal political leaders.
Post-colonial African dictators became a tradition, to be passed down
from a generation to generation.
Our Leaders is a series of large scale paintings representing
Traditional Sudanese historical, political and spiritual leaders. I have painted them all naked, as a simple way of striping away their holiness and bringing them down to the level of mortals.
The paintings carry both a historical weight, and formal aesthetical
elements.
The historical weight comes becomes the figures are recognizable for
Their role as prominent persons in the politics of the Sudan, present and past.
The aesthetic element enters because the paintings with colors, forms and textures intended to be pleasing to the eye.
A VILLGE OF FIRE:
A village of fire is a drawing that I composed last summer at the
international art colony of ART OMI in New York. The Village of Fire is
one of the largest drawings in the world; it occupies a field the size of two football stadiums. The drawing was created over a period of three weeks, requiring intensive labor, 12-16 hours a day of continuous work.
The images were done using fire against grass.
The images detail the everyday life in Sudanese villages. The scenes
are of different activities of the people, of houses, trees and animals, such as cows, dogs, goats, crocodiles , butterflies , birds, etc.
Agriculture in Africa is center of life; before the start of each new
Farming season many villagers gather to fertilize their fields: they use fire to burn away old grass and plants. This practice is called (NAFEER) in the Sudan, and the (NAFEER) has its own elaborate cultures, is very ancient and very much still a part of many African nations and certainly in the Sudan.
Fire, represents regeneration - from the burned plants and grass, new
Sprouts grow greener, stronger and healthier.
The drawing also emphasizes the concept of time, and the nature of the
Changes that occur in our environment.
Fire is such a powerful element- when people discovered fire, their
Lives changed dramatically and broadly. It had many uses and was even
Worshipped among many nations. The smoke was used to send messages, ashes were used for various ritual practices, including as paint to decorate houses and bodies, and to protect bodies.
I chose to work with the element of fire in this project because of its
Power to both construct and destruct; because it offered challenge and
excitement to me, and because of its originality when used as a contemporary drawing element.
The drawing offers multiple and complex possibilities of visual
perspectives.
As the viewer moves from one side to another on the hilly landscape,
Images begin to changes dramatically. The figurative elements may assemble or scatter, offering new and unexpected shapes. Being in the field surrounded by all these burned marks and images is a unique experience, though even more exciting was the experience of burning the images into physical shapes, of existing between the heat of the sunny August day and the heat of the fire from the steal torch, of existing with the smell of the burning grass.
A Village of fire project was a challenge for me.
REDO CHINA :
Redo China is a perspective exhibition organized by Chinese Artist,
Curator and activist, Pan Xing Lei. On September 18th, ten artists from
Different nations will gather at the Asian Center in New York to the open the show titled, “Redo China.” Each artist will create impressions of the contemporary
China as they see it, and as people of their own nation see it.
My memories of China were always associated with red. As Chairman Mao
addressed the young and well-organized Chinese men and women at festive
occasions, Red was the color that captured my ayes, always Red, cadmium
red.
Even on the cover of the elegant magazine, Re-Building China… Red, that
translated to rigged Arabic
My memories of China were often intermingled with the constructions of
my own Sudan and spared of the concept of providing people with the mean of catching the fish, but never giving them the fish. I have good memories of China - after all I was a representative of the (ping pong) team at my high school.
In the recent years my memories with China, became red, green, and
black.
Red for blood, green for the dollars, and black for the oil! As the world fell apart, China became a super power of some sort. The capital market imposed new economic needs and the competitive market imposed investment desire.
My more recent memories of China are linked with the discovery of oil in the Sudan.
China with all its experience in the intellect, engendering and
development, China with all its history in advocating friendship, and comradeship, Has become heavily involved in investing for dollars by any means necessarily.
It invests in several African nations, including Sudan.
Despite all those wonderful things of China’s history, despite all the
wonderful memories I personally have, the present reality of China’s
investment in Africa is not a pretty one! The human toll is so high,
over two million Sudanese people have lost their lives, four million have lost their homes, and hundreds of villages have been destroyed as giant oil machines took the places of huts and fields that once belonged to indigenous Sudanese families. Many of these machines are Chinese.
My newer memories of China are not of history, culture and the festive
Color red.
They are no longer good ones. They are of murderous silence and heartless investment in the genocide taking place in Sudan. The images of red are now images of blood; the blood of millions of Sudanese people.
This installation is a response to China’s decision to invest in a
Country ruled by a dictator. The painting is executed using Oil, Blood and Ink on rice paper.
I believe that the use of these materials is the most important
Element of this work.
Khalid I Kodi
[email protected]
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