AIR 2021: Beizar Aradini
A Kurdish Melody & The Kurdish Home Movie Preservation Project
The Kurdish Home Movie Preservation Project
Beizar Aradini (b.1991) was born in Mardin, Kurdistan and immigrated with her family to Nashville, Tennessee in 1992. Her work unravels her family’s story as immigrants and examines cultural displacement through craft and fiber arts. Aradini addresses cultural shifts and challenges that arise in diasporic life while also reclaiming the historical coding of sewing and embroidery as “women’s work”.
I am proposing to create a new video that will incorporate older footage of the Kurdish community and new footage of Kurdish spaces and experiences in 2021. Most of the Kurdish population immigrated to Nashville in the earlier 90s. After thirty odd years, the community has grown tremendously. My goal is to highlight the growth of the community and expansion of Kurdish spaces in Nashville since when we first immigrated to America. - Beizar Aradini
Aradini’s AIR project preserves aging and endangered home movie footage of first and second generation Nashville-based families who immigrated from Kurdstan, and provides families with a digital copy of their home movies. Aradini also created a film, A Kurdish Melody, which blends contemporary footage from Nashville’s Kurdish community with the preserved home movie footage. The new work is in collaboration with oud player, Sawar Abdullatif, and video producer, Pablo Zuniga.
The project is directed by Audiovisual Heritage Center Program Coordinator, Kelli Hix and Beizar Aradini. The project is supported in part by funds from the National Historical Records and Paper Commission, the Nashville Public Library Foundation, and the Tennessee State Library and Archives.
This work will premier publicly in Nashville in Fall 2023 as part of the Mirror House series sponsored by the Porch.
Learn more about the Kurdish Home Movie Preservation Project.