MEMORY STATION, 2015 (Artefact commission) // HANGING GARDENS, 2015

In Memory Station, Bilal Bahir questions his memory of the Baghdad's sky, from his childhood up till today, through a series of 20 drawings. The installation is a documentary, a research into the sky of his city of birth that through the recent history supported different kind of flying objects. Counting his first memory as a tale, Bilal Bahir draws the objects from his childhood into the sky, starting with the mobile above his cot and other toys like a kite, a paper plane, but also including flying objects from Baghdadi children’s imagination world, coming from mythology and popular tales as told by their mothers and grandmothers. When the Gulf war started, Bilal discovered as a young child the dark meaning of airplanes and missiles in the air. In that time his family escaped from Baghdad to find refuge in the south of the country. Frightened by the exploding bombs in the dark sky of Baghdad, Bilal often hid himself in the traditional mantle of his grandmother. His perspective on the sky of his childhood was changed forever by this war and the U.S. war. In Memory Station every drawing is a station: a moment taken out of Bilal Bahir's memory that is inextricably linked with the history of his country. This tragedy of wars brings him to the last station: exile.

Alongside this work made for Up in the Air, Bahir presents an animation of a previous series of drawings called Hanging Gardens.

Bilal Bahir (IQ/BE)
°1988, Baghdad

Visual artist Bilal Bahir lives and works near Namur. In his practice, Bahir uses a wide range of media and techniques, involving installations, videos, collages, drawings, sculptures, and objects. He draws inspiration from the culture of his native country and from the conflicts which have ravaged it. His often serial works usually refer to memories of childhood, traditional and religious tales, as well as exile and unrootedness. Bilal Bahir is a graduate in sculpture of the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad (2008).