Bahzad Sulaiman

I am Bahzad Sulaiman, fine artist, performance artist and lecturer at the Hochschule der Bildenden Künste Saar (Saar College of Fine Arts).  I was born in north-east Syria in 1991 and belong to the Kurdish ethnic group which is suppressed by the Syrian regime.  I have experienced exclusion myself, along with limited freedom of movement.  These early experiences have strengthened my feeling of belonging to the Kurdish ethnic group, which plays a key role in my current artistic production – this is marked by an interest in movement, in the exploration of bodies and the space around them and in the connection between the individual and the group.

After completing a degree in sculpture at Damascus University of Fine Arts, I devoted my attention to the shapes of objects and their spatial qualities.  This made clear to me that I am interested in exploring the movement of objects and people within a three-dimensional structure, which led me to study stage adaptation at the theatre academy in Damascus.  In 2019 I was awarded a Master’s degree in performance and installation at the Saar College of Fine Arts in Saarbrücken.