Running Fronds

Haneen Hadiy

Celebrating the beauty and culture of Iraq through a close engagement with the date palm, the determined and devoted attention of Haneen Hadiy's painting and photography seeks to challenge misconceptions and dominant cultural narratives about Iraq. Positing the date palm as having nurtured civilization, the trees appear again and again in Haneen's work, embodying a reciprocal relationship with the land, helping us think outside the framework of the human to understand the integral connections that exist between societies and the natural world. The majesty and beauty of the date palms are rendered carefully across her body of work, her photographs intimate and evocative, capturing fine details illuminated in golden fading sunlight that are contrasted with strong silhouetted shadows. Haneen's ink depictions of the trees are painted using palm fronds, closing a loop in which the trees are inspiration, tool and final representation. Haneen is a 2023 Glasgow School of Art graduate as well as a New Blood Art Emerging Art Prize nominee, and in 2022 was the recipient of a Dewar Award, the proceeds of which will go towards the development and installation of a solo exhibition of Haneen's work in Iraq.