By Biennale of Sydney
22nd Biennale of Sydney: NIRIN
Bow Echo Installation ImageBiennale of Sydney
About the artist
Aziz Hazara
Born 1992 in Wardak, Afghanistan
Lives and works in Kabul, Afghanistan and Ghent, Belgium
Aziz Hazara is an interdisciplinary artist based in Kabul and Ghent. He works across mediums such as photography, video, sound, language programming, text and multimedia installations to explore questions of identity, memory, archive, conflict, surveillance and migration in the context of power relations, geopolitics and the panopticon.
The 22nd Biennale of Sydney presents the world premiere of Aziz Hazara’s video works Bow Echo at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia and Monument at Campbelltown Arts Centre, both made in collaboration with community and friends in his hometown in Afghanistan, on the high hills of Wardak Province.
This is the story of Bow Echo.
Aziz Hazara | Bow Echo Trailer | 22nd Biennale of Sydney | NIRIN (2020)Biennale of Sydney
Bow Echo Bow Echo (2019) by Aziz HazaraBiennale of Sydney
Bow Echo
In Bow Echo, five boys climb and try to stay perched atop a large rock, battered by high winds.
Their aim is to play a plastic children’s bugle to announce the urgency of their community’s plight against repression, which includes the murder of children and others. The eerie sounds express a connection with the landscape, in which many traumatic events have taken place.
As other cities around the world sound their recognition of death with bugles of shiny metal, like at Anzac Day in Australia, these children’s plastic bugles are hardly heard above the howling winds.
Bow Echo Installation ImageBiennale of Sydney
"The work has been inspired by my own experience of the recurring horrors of suicide bomb attacks that have unsettled the city of Kabul. They are a sort of ‘horror game’ and, since 2001, have taken place in different parts of the city, becoming an integral part of its recent history...
... The question of how best to represent this history and its effect on the lives of individuals has been one of the most persistent questions during the making of this work. Very often, the idea of representation becomes a dilemma."
- Aziz Hazara
Tap to explore
Look around you and explore the five screens of Bow Echo.
Bow Echo Installation ImageBiennale of Sydney
Go behind the scenes and listen to Aziz Hazara talk about his life, work and practice in this artist's talk at the Museum of Contemporary Art.
Bow Echo, 2019
5-channel digital video, colour, sound, 4:17 minutes
Originally commissioned by the Han Nefkens Foundation.
Presentation at the 22nd Biennale of Sydney was made possible with generous support from Open Society Foundations and assistance from NIRIN 500
Produced by the Han Nefkens Foundation
Courtesy the artist
