Zahra Hakim (IR, 1983)
Residency period: September-November 2024
When I applied for a residency at La Becque, my initial proposal was to create a garden with ceramics and sound pieces inspired by family memories of war, lost gardens, and nature. However, arriving here a year later, the breathtaking nature gave me the sense that I had already found this “lost” space. Surrounded by the lake, mountains, weeping willows, and birds, I spent hours meditating, observing, and connecting deeply with my inner self. For the first time, I felt at one with nature — the lake, sun, clouds, and life around me.
This profound experience inspired a new project: a video exploring childhood, memory, attachment, and loss. With my team, we began working with two children to evoke these themes. I also recorded conversations with friends about their childhood memories, houses, and emotions to integrate into the film.
Before leaving, I collaborated with an artist who had lost his garden to urban development. Together, we planted some of the plants and seeds he had salvaged in La Becque’s garden. I also began a series of wood carvings inspired by the views from my apartment, drawing connections to my own childhood.
My residency has been transformative. It deepened my connection to nature, inspired new projects, and provided opportunities to bond with other residents by sharing meals and conversations. La Becque gifted me inspiration, emotional depth, and meaningful human connections — an experience I will carry with me into the future. — Zahra Hakim
Living and working in Geneva since 2011, visual artist Zahra Hakim (born in 1983 in Iran to Iraqi/Iranian parents) is an MA graduate in Contemporary Artistic Practices (Work.Master) from HEAD – Genève. Having lived through the conflict between Iran and Iraq during the first years of her life, her personal experience and her view of the world are strongly marked by the memory of the war and the many displacements that followed. Self-taught in her artistic practice, Hakim explores questions of belonging, resistance, continuity, care, and femininity through her memories, dreams, and observations. Using different media such as ceramics, painting, and weaving, her installations mostly articulate objects and artifacts in places that she arranges to imagine a new living space, benevolent and secure but doomed to disappear.
Zahra Hakim, La Becque, 2024, photo Matthieu Croizier and Zahra Hakim