Hardi KURDA
About the artist
Hardi Kurda is a composer, sound artist, improviser, violinist, and researcher. He is the founder and curator of SPACE21 Sound Gallery, based in Sulaymaniyah in the Kurdistan Region. Since 2017, through SPACE21, he has developed experimental music and sound art festivals, workshops, research projects, publications, and international collaborations across the Kurdistan Region. He is also the founder of Archive Khanah, an interactive sound archive project.
Kurda studied music at the Sulaymaniyah Fine Arts Institute before completing both his BA and MA in Music Composition at the Gothenburg Academy of Music and Drama. He completed his doctoral studies at Goldsmiths, University of London. In 2025, he submitted his doctoral thesis, Found Scores: Listening in a Time of Crisis, at Goldsmiths.
His artistic practice brings together composition, improvisation, electroacoustic music, sound installation, radio, and performance. Through his Found Scores approach, he transforms everyday and functional objects, including carpets, ECG devices, books, maps, and radio circuits, into alternative musical scores. Selected works include Sounding Carpet, Your Resonance, Illegal Frequencies, Radiola Springs, Illegal Score – Dukan Dam, Vibration of Books, and Voice Notes.
Kurda’s work has been presented at international festivals and institutions including Sonorities Festival (Belfast), Borderline Festival (Athens), MaerzMusik (Berlin), Café OTO (London), Irtijal Festival (Beirut), Le Guess Who? (Utrecht), and the New Music Biennial at Southbank Centre (London). He has also undertaken artist residencies through programmes including Radio Art Residency (Halle), Beyond 1932 (King’s College London), and Le Guess Who? / Reproduction (Goa).
Kurda is also a member of the jury for the Gaudeamus Award 2026. In September 2026, he will present two interactive sound installations, Sounding Carpet and Your Resonance, as part of Gaudeamus Festival 2026 in Utrecht.
As a co-founder of Duo Moment with cellist Khabat Abas, Kurda has released the albums Broken Resonance and Illegal Performance. His solo album Radiola Springs was released in 2022.