Haffendi Anuar – 5th Kooshk Artist Residency Award (KARA) 2019

In May 2019, we had the honor to hold the fifth edition of Kooshk Artist Residency Award (KARA 2019), with participation of the awarded artists Haffendi Anuar from Malaysia, Sarah Feuillas from France, Rafael Cañete Fernández from Spain and Laure Catugier from France. These 4 awardees were selected by the international team of jury, in two different rounds (consisting of Thomas Thayer – Associate Professor at The City College of New York, Anne Mullee – Curator, Researcher and Art Writer, Alan Quireyns – Artistic Director at Air Antwerpen, Bénédicte Alliot – Director General at Cite Internationale des Arts, Yangshu Kaikai – Director of Organhaus Art Space, Ruth Adams – Executive Director of Art Omi, Natasha Chuk – Arts Writer and Curator, Adeela Suleman – Visual Artist, Director of Vasl Artists’ Association and the Head of the Fine Art Department at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, Nathalie Angles –Director/Founder of Residency Unlimited (RU) and Tooraj Khamenehzadeh – Artist, Program Advisor of Kooshk and Board Member of Rybon Art Center and ResArtis).

During their first days in Iran, they took a trip to Kashan to visit histroical and cultural places and they had the chance to take a tour to Maranjab Desert. Later on, they visited arts and culture places in Tehran such as National Museum of Iran and Pearl Palace. They also went to see New Town of Pardis. Few days later, Sarah visited Shiraz and  Howz-e- Sultan Lake. She also went to glassblowing factory where she worked on her sculpture project. Besides, Rafael and Laure paid a visit to Music Museum of Iran.

On May 28, 2019, a talk session of the KARA winners was held in Darbast Platform in which they talked about their artworks and the experience they had during one month residency at Kooshk. Natasha Chuk, writer and curator who also was one of the KARA’s jury members, was moderating the session. Eventually, on May 30 -on the last day of their stay- an open studio presenting their artworks was held in Deegar Platform.