 Rebin Chalak
In 2014, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) began perpetrating a genocide against the Yazidis, a small ethnic-religious group in Northern Iraq. Yazidis were forced to convert to Islam or be killed. Yazidi women and girls were often captured, put into cages, and forced into marriage and sexual slavery to members of ISIL. Thousands of Yazidi men and boys were either killed or forcibly recruited into the ranks of ISIL. To this day, the whereabouts of thousands of women and girls remain unknown.
Iraqi-Kurdish artist Rebin Chalak began meeting with Yazidi women who survived and escaped this violence. To tell their stories without putting them at further risk, Chalak casts their faces into masks. Chalak travels the world with the masks to raise awareness of the violence these women have experienced. He also offers opportunities for others to wear the masks in an effort to draw a deeper connection between visitors and the women’s experiences. The masks displayed in Artivism were cast from the faces of actual survivors. They represent only an infinitesimal percentage of the number of women and girls who suffered this violence. |
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Rebin Chalak was born on July 3, 1986, in Koya Town in Iraqi Kurdistan. He graduated from the College of Fine Arts, School of Painting in 2009 and has performed many private and public exhibitions. Since 2003, he has been working in the video recording field, and was assistant director of the movie Bekas. Currently he is a lecturer at the Institute of Fine Arts and the production manager of Hama Company. stories, memories, and traumas with them and often release these onto the work they create.