from RIFT, released May 5, 2023
Hardi Kurda is a composer, sound artist, improviser, researcher, curator and founder of SPACE21 for experimental music and sound art in Slemani, Kurdistan region in Iraq. Hardi’s works and performances involve suggestive, unusual sounds, unexpected moments, and noises. The artist uses, among others, the radio to explore spectrum frequency as sound material and interact with the audience to reflect on his illegal journey to Europe and question the construction of legality. Besides composing classical acoustic and electronic music, Hardi develops pieces in which music interacts with different art forms in new art spaces to create new listening experiences using found scores, a new listening medium he develops.
He performed at the Sonorities festival Belfast, the Borderline festival Athens, the Crater project Santa Cruz de La Palma, the Soundings Conference ADK Berlin, IKLECTIK Art Lab (2022), Café OTO London (2021), Nomos Museum Gdansk (2021), Irtijal festival Beirut (2019).
He composed “24/7 Everywhere” for the Listening Biennial Slemani, part of the Global Listening Biennial collaboration with SPACE21, where he is part of the curator collective and the radio Middle East PhoNographic Morning (2021). He became the fifth scholarship holder of the Radio Art Residency in Halle, Germany, where he created two experimental radio performances based on his illegal journey to Europe that revolved around illegality and the construction of legality. The radio programmes broadcasted on Radio Corax, Shift FM, Deutschland funk Hörspielmagazin, generation FM, and the live performance on Gallery Blech (2020). He develops the project on illegality in collaboration with Melos Collective in Vilnius (2022). The Magnified Face, the found score of the Kurdish carpet, is a telepathic performance during the symposium on the John Heartfield found footage ADK Berlin (2020).
He received the residency programme from the Swedish Artist grant committee to compose the piece The Latest News for Ensemble Recherche Freiburg (2019), Between Me and the Others performed at the Berliner Festspiele Maerz Musik by Adapter ensemble (2013), Open Ensemble sound installation presented at the Sound Place exhibition (2015), Game Piece for Zurna at the Showroom London (2010). He received awards and commissions from AFAC, the Arab fund for art and culture (2022), Brent Council London (2021), the Society for Swedish Composers (2019), the Department of Public Art in Gothenburg (2018), the Swedish Art Council (2018), the Goethe Institute (2017), and Västra Götaland Region culture prize (2015).
As a founder and curator of SPACE21, Hardi has organised and curated projects since 2017, including annual festivals, workshops, artistic research, publications, and establishing a sound gallery in the city of Slemani and the SPACE21 label.
Hardi is co-founder of Duo Moment with Khabat Abas, and they released albums Broken Resonance on Space21 Label and Illegal Performance (2021). His solo album Radiola Springs (2022).
Hardi is a visiting lecturer at The University of Winchester teaching Interaction Design, focusing on questioning the role of artistic practice in a social environment by creating another perspective on listening to sound.
hardikurda.com
space21.bandcamp.com