The exhibition is a companion event to the opening of the NOMUS New Art Museum.

Kurdish art continues to develop under complex political and economic conditions. At the end of the Iraq-Iran War (1980-1988), which claimed many lives on both sides, the Kurdish population in Iraq had already lived through the horrors of genocide ordered by Saddam Hussein. The dramatic struggle for independence has become a key element of Kurdish culture and the politics of memory and is not only part of the collective experience but also the dominant narrative through which the identity of the autonomous Kurdistan Region was created. Developing a new language of art in a country struggling with wars and condemned to struggle for survival is particularly difficult. A group of artists, whose works refer to the reality that shapes them, have succeeded in doing so.

The works presented at the exhibition address the theme of reliving history and the moral and social changes occurring in the region. Their creators belong to the generation of thirty and forty-year-olds, most of whom had the opportunity to study abroad, mainly in Germany, Great Britain or Scandinavia. Some of them returned to their homeland and teach at art schools, others remained in the diaspora. Among those invited to the National Museum are: Hiwa K (Berlin/Suleimania), Sherko Abbas (Manchester), Kani Kamil (Manchester), Shirwan Fatih (Suleimania), Rebeen Hamarafiq (Suleimania), Rozhgar Mustafa (Suleimania), Sakar Sleman (Suleimania), Walid Siti (London), Halgurd A. Baram (Suleimania).