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Hayv Kahraman was 10 when her family fled Iraq. As a refugee growing up in Sweden, she worked hard to assimilate into her new homeland, mastering Swedish and trying to avoid speaking Arabic. The process of distancing herself from Iraqi culture continued as an adult, when she spent four years studying art in Italy.
“I was indoctrinated into believing that white European art history was what I needed to strive for. So I visited all the museums, I made copies of Old Master paintings. … I was in that space, believing that what I needed to do was to mimic that in order to succeed,” she told Al-Monitor. “Looking back at it now, it was as if my mind was colonized.”
