Category: Long Journey Home

Nazhad is a bespoke photographer specialising in portrait and bodily representations in the Rembrandt style. Since 1989 he has been active in the arts as photographer and producer in twelve theatre shows internationally, including dramatisations of Bertolt Brecht’s ‘Mother Courage’ and Eugène Ionesco’s ‘La Jeune Fille à Marier’. After graduating in Theatre Directing at Sulaimani Institute of Fine Arts, he went on to study Master Degree in Documentary Film at The Royal Holloway University of London. He currently lectures in photography at the University of Shanghai.

​For Banner Theatre in the United Kingdom, Nazhad has covered a wide range of stories, from the plight of displaced populations in the Middle East to the social trauma experienced by refugees in the West. In 2018 Nazhad published his first photographic collection in book-form, entitled ‘101 Beads: Kurdistan in War’, which was praised, despite the dangerous and tragic circumstances, for its intimate portrait work and honest use of absurd realism. During his coverage for the book, Nazhad gave public talks for a variety of institutions, including the BBC. His work remains passionately human in context, often with a sharp focus on moral ambiguities, existential angst and beauty in unexpected places.

​Find out more here: https://gaylan.wixsite.com/101beads/101beads

Long Journey Home brought together newly arrived migrant artists with local artists to break down cultural walls and build bridges in our communities. We used these art forms: music, film, art, spoken word, theatre, and took part in many festivals and events 2005-2008.

What fun we had!

Here are some of the mix of artists: