Jala Wahid works across sculpture, film, sound and installation. Her work is rooted in archival research into colonial and diasporic history and politics from a Kurdish perspective. Her objects and films articulate the emotive politics and complexity of contested histories. Deliberately choosing a sensual, alluring and even delirious aesthetic, she embraces the theatrical, in part to offer a counter-narrative to the coloniser’s dry account, in part to celebrate an identity that refuses to be erased. Employing the emotive potential of material, music, dance and theatre, her work looks to the poetic within politics. She is interested in the complexities of nationalism, history, iconography and methods of archiving and existence.

HOW IS YOUR WORK INFLUENCED BY THE CIRCA 2024 MANIFESTO?
The Mesopotamian artefacts of ‘I Love Ancient Baby’ are the revolutionaries of breaking free. They outlived their makers and will outlive their kidnappers. Though hidden within the prisons of the digital archive and the cold, clinical glass vitrine, here, they momentarily dance and display an alternate reality, one where the arrow of time is no longer linear, ancient emotions mirror those felt today and anxious euphoria becomes the precipice of political change. History written by the coloniser, discoverer and thief is undone allowing for a different future: as the objects defy the agenda of their makers, so can we resist the consequences of our predecessors’ actions.

WHAT WOULD YOU CREATE/DO WITH THE £30K CIRCA PRIZE?
In the 1950s, 9 neanderthal skeletons were discovered in the Shanidar cave of Kurdistan cited as the cradle of civilisation. All but one were lost during the 2003 Iraq invasion. £30k would allow me to realise a new work filmed within the Shanidar cave involving glow-in-the-dark remakes of the lost skeletons featuring the unique acoustics of the hauntingly, dimly lit cave. Set in the future, ancient beings engage in self-discovery and defiance against the machinations of contemporary war.

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