Shatoo Kamaran, a self-taught Kurdish special-effects artist from Slemani, built Jargy Studio from basement experiments using improvised materials into Kurdistan’s first special-effects studio and Iraq’s first female-owned studio of its kind. Her work spans film, advertising, horror and advocacy campaigns addressing women’s rights, while major projects such as a film about the Halabja chemical attack established her professional reputation. Despite discrimination from imported male specialists, limited resources and cultural restrictions on Kurdish women, Kamaran continues to expand the field, mentor emerging artists and seek international training. Jargy’s future depends on greater investment, infrastructure and recognition for local creative talent.

Jinwar, a women-led village in Rojava founded in 2017, offers women and children displaced by ISIS, patriarchal violence and conflict a communal alternative centered on solidarity, self-governance, ecological sustainability and mutual aid. Resident Yasmîn describes how shared decision-making, education, agriculture, health care, breadmaking and clothing production help residents rebuild their lives and develop economic self-sufficiency. The village supports newcomers emotionally while allowing them to decide whether to join its collective life, and raises children outside traditional gender stereotypes. Its residents view Jinwar as both a sanctuary and a model for a broader liberated society.

Gulnam Mahmood Mustafa (1952–2023) was a Kurdish professor, activist and polyglot who devoted her life to women’s liberation. After founding the Kurdish Women’s Student Union in Mosul in 1971, she organized for equal pay, education, healthcare, reproductive autonomy and protection from gender-based violence while supporting families displaced by conflict. The Ba’athist regime exiled her in 1976, but she continued organizing discreetly across Iraq, Kurdistan and Turkey. After returning to liberated Kurdish areas in the 1990s, she helped rebuild the Kurdish Women’s Union, promoted women’s participation in elections, established support centres and expanded advocacy to Arab, Yezidi, Assyrian and Turkmen women. Later, she engaged Kurdish diaspora communities and international organizations in Europe, including at the 2009 UN climate conference. Her most lasting contribution was authoring the constitution of the Women’s Union of Kurdistan, which continues to guide its work. She died in Kurdistan in 2023 after suffering a severe stroke in 2015.

Jury StatementBetty holds close the things that give her strength: tarot cards, candles, a makeup brush, headphones, a bottle of perfume. These objects do not appear as incidental props, but as carriers of meaning, material condensations of self-assurance, protection and inner orientation. This act of holding extends beyond the objects themselves: she grips a railing in an outwardly hostile environment and carefully draws aside a delicate, translucent curtain that both separates and connects her from the viewer’s, as well as the outside’s gaze. In this work, Hana Ibrahim develops a visual language that is at once warm, intimate and restrained, approaching Betty’s everyday life with due care and sensitivity.Read and view Betty’s journey in her Photostory.

Kurdish Alevi women are portrayed as the living archives of a faith and culture sustained through oral tradition, music, ritual and remembrance rather than written institutions. The piece argues that women preserved Alevi identity through discrimination, state assimilation, displacement and violence by transmitting songs, laments, stories and ethical values across generations. It highlights zakire, Ana Baci and figures such as Elif Ana, Zarife, Sakine Cansiz and Bese Hozat as examples of spiritual leadership, historical memory and political resistance. Their work connects Alevi principles of equality, consent and justice with the Kurdish women’s movement and the struggle against patriarchal power and ethnic erasure.

Kurdish gold jewellery is presented as a portable archive of memory, identity and survival. Families have used bracelets, coins, belts and other pieces as emergency wealth during war, displacement and economic crisis, while wedding gifts and mahr provide women with assets under their own control. The article examines regional forms including the Kamar belt, Ashêqbend, Sar Parcham and Shahmaran motifs, linking their materials and designs to Kurdish, Yazidi, Assyrian and broader Middle Eastern traditions. It concludes that gold is more than ornament: it preserves women’s histories, supports family resilience and carries cultural belonging across borders and generations.

Wahîda, a Kurdish teenager from Saqqez, was arrested at fifteen during an Iranian state crackdown on Kurdish activists in December 1982. After eight months in prison, she was executed by firing squad on 13 August 1983, and her body was never returned; her family was reportedly billed for the bullets used in her execution. Through testimony from her childhood friend Azita, the piece recounts Wahîda’s activism, imprisonment, execution, and the lasting grief carried by her family and community. Decades later, The Jiyan Archives preserves her photographs and story as an act of remembrance and resistance against the disappearance of Kurdish girls from historical memory.

A family in Baiji, Iraq, rebuilds its life after displacement caused by the ISIL conflict. Matriarch Amsha leads the effort despite disability and hardship, supported by her children and daughter-in-law. With assistance from Welthungerhilfe in 2023, including a greenhouse, tools and agricultural training, the family restored their land and produced their first crops in 2024. While most produce is used for subsistence, they hope to expand production and income. Their collective work aims to secure long-term stability and a legacy for future generations.

Meryem Mado, born near Tirbespî in 1942, was classified as Maktoum al-Qayd after Syria’s 1962 census stripped many Kurds in Hesekê province of citizenship. Her undocumented status prevented legal recognition of her marriage, restricted her children’s access to education, employment and travel, and left several generations stateless. After her husband’s death in 1976, she supported their four children through agricultural labor. Meryem moved to Erbil in 2019, where she is recognized as Kurdish, but her children and grandchildren remain undocumented in Syria despite government pledges to restore citizenship.

Della Murad transformed Kurdish dress from a largely private and traditional form of clothing into a visible expression of identity, pride and resistance. Drawing on her upbringing in Baghdad and experiences in Germany, Kurdistan and London, she modernized Kurdish garments through new cuts, colors, fabrics and the deliberate exposure of the derpê. Her designs gained attention across the Kurdish diaspora and at international cultural venues. As co-founder and Artistic Director of the charity Gulan, Murad also promoted Kurdish art and heritage, although an ambitious archive of regional dress was halted by ISIS’s violence. She hopes to establish a living design house in Kurdistan to preserve and reinterpret Kurdish fashion for future generations.