TEMPORARY EXHIBITION

Let there be light! The cosmogonic festival of the Yezidis from the Iraqi Kurdistan. Photographs by Artur Rodziewicz

29.03.2018 - 6.05.2018

For centuries, in the spring month of Nisan, Yezidis commemorate the creation of the world by God and His submitting it to its ruler, the Peacock Angel, whom they worship. The main celebrations take place during the Festival of Wednesday (Çarşemiya Sor) in the most important Yezidi sanctuary, which is situated in the Iraqi Kurdistan, in Lalish near Mosul. On Tuesday evening the Yezidis gather in the courtyard of the temple, and when the sun goes down, in the solemn atmosphere permeated with hymns intoned in praise of the emergence of the light and the world, they kindle hundreds of flames.

Now, as the so-called Islamic State is grabbing more and more territories, Shingal and Mosul have been seized, and the Yezidis themselves are being exterminated, the Yezidi culture is coming under a huge threat.

The exhibition aims to commemorate one of its treasures.

 

Curator: Karolina Krzywicka