hardi kurda

Com­po­ser and sound artist Har­di Kur­da is the fifth reci­pi­ent of the Radio Art Resi­den­cy scho­l­ar­s­hip. Kur­da stu­di­ed music in Sle­ma­ni, Kur­di­stan Regi­on, Iraq and com­po­si­ti­on in Leip­zig, Ger­ma­ny and Gothen­burg, Swe­den. In his per­for­man­ces and com­po­si­ti­ons he uses the radio as an instru­ment to explo­re the fre­quen­cy spec­trum as tonal material.

I was always loo­king for a way to make music and feel free at doing so — in the sen­se that I didn’t want to impo­se a pre­con­cei­ved idea on time, the explo­ra­ti­on of space, or the per­cep­ti­on of the envi­ron­ment. And I found this free­dom in radio, in the fre­quen­ci­es that are free to be lis­tened to and used.

Kur­da will fur­ther explo­re the free­dom in the frequency’s inter­me­di­a­ry tones during his three-mon­th resi­den­cy at Radio CORAX. Under the tit­le Listening’s Urgen­cy he aims to deve­lop a radio prac­ti­ce that will be con­ti­nued in Kur­di­stan-Iraq, whe­re he grew up and foun­ded a fes­ti­val for sound art and expe­ri­men­tal music in 2017, brin­ging artis­tic sound prac­ti­ces into the public sphere.

Har­di Kur­da stu­di­ed music in Sle­ma­ni, com­po­si­ti­on in Gothen­burg and Leip­zig, and is a PhD stu­dent at Golds­mit­hs, Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don. His works have been per­for­med at the Irti­jal Fes­ti­val, Bei­rut, the Ber­li­ner Fest­spie­le Maerz­Mu­sik, the Sound Place exhi­bi­ti­on, Lon­don, and have been com­mis­sio­ned by the Depart­ment of Public Art in Gothen­burg, the Swe­dish Art Grants Com­mit­tee and the Goe­the-Insti­tut. In 2017 Kur­da foun­ded the Space 21 fes­ti­val for sound art and expe­ri­men­tal music, which takes place annu­al­ly in the auto­no­mous regi­on of Kur­di­stan in Iraq. He recent­ly recei­ved a com­mis­si­on from the Swe­dish Art Coun­cil for his pro­ject The Ille­gal Per­for­mance. His upco­m­ing con­cert will be per­for­med at the Aca­de­my of Arts Ber­lin (ADK) tog­e­ther with the sound artist Jen­ni­fer Wals­he and is based on found foo­ta­ge by John Heartfield.

→ artist website

→ Har­di Kur­da @Radio Art Residency