Aziz Hazara: The Restless Echo of Tomorrow

The Han Nefkens Foundation, in collaboration with the Fundació Antoni Tàpies, is glad to present the first solo exhibition of Afghan artist Aziz Hazara.

The exhibition, titled The Restless Echo of Tomorrow, is the result of the Mentorship Grant awarded to Hazara by the Han Nefkens Foundation in 2019 that aims to support artists in all aspects of production. The grant has enabled Hazara to be one of the residents at the Higher Institute for Fine Arts (HISK) in Ghent, Belgium.

Curated by Sona Stepanyan and Hilde Teerlinck, The Restless Echo of Tomorrow at the Fundació Antoni Tàpies will show three recent works produced by the Han Nefkens Foundation. They include the critically acclaimed Bow Echo 2019—a five-channel video installation that was featured for the first time at the Biennale of Sydney 2020—in addition to the premiere of recently produced Rehearsal (2020) as well as Eyes in the Sky (2020), both single-channel video work

Born in the province of Wardak, close to Kabul in Afghanistan in 1992, Hazara works across mediums such as photography, video, sound, text and multimedia installations. His works in this exhibition feature young boys whom have grown up within a context of violence and war. The actions that Hazara stages with the young boys for the camera explore the relationship between the young people depicted and the distressing places that form their playground.   

“My interest in the issues of memory, archive, surveillance, the panopticon and the politics of representation, is deeply entrenched in the geopolitics and the never-ending conflict that afflicts my native Afghanistan. The relevance of such issues, however, overcome geographical specificities and appeal to a contemporary condition that is globally shared.” -Aziz Hazara

Hazara will have a solo exhibition at the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève in 2021, with a selection of works including new productions.