Sadik Kwaish Alfraji

I Am the Hunter, I Am the Prey

2017

Consisting of one video / animation channel, notebook, a series of drawings and documents.

Commissioned by Ruya Foundation for the 57th Venice Biennale, Iraq Pavilion.

The relationship between the hunter and prey takes the form of a dialectic relation. There is no hunter without a prey, and no prey without a hunter. At the same time, there is a prey within the hunter, and a hunter residing within the prey. All beings on this earth experience this.

The animation seeks to mimic our human experiences within this dialectic. Depictions of the hunt are ancient but they also persist to this day.

This work takes the form of visual indexing. The drawings that are reproduced here were inspired by school textbooks, ancient myths, artifacts, fairy tales, Islamic manuscripts, anatomical drawings, cosmologies, signs of the zodiac and the stars. Each tells us something about the hunt.

> I Am the Hunter, I Am the Prey, an animation frame drawing, 2017, 50 x 31.5 cm. charcoal, ink and collage.

I Am the Hunter, I Am the Prey

4:14 minutes, Loop, Sound, 2017

Selected stills / frames

> I Am the Hunter, I Am the Prey, animation, 2017, 4:14 minutes, Loop, Sound.

Drawings

Selected frames drawings

> I Am the Hunter, I Am the Prey, animation frame drawings, 2017, 50 x 31.5 cm. charcoal, ink and collage.

Selected indexing drawings

> About Hunt, About Human, Indexing series of drawings, 2017, 14.5x10cm. Graphite pencil, ink and water color on indian handmade paper.

Selected Notebook drawings

> Selected pages from About Hunt, About Human, Notebook pages, drawing, 2017, 27.5x20.5cm. Graphite pencil, ink and water color on Notebook paper.