Fine Art Research Unit Talk: Issam Kourbaj

Join us on our Cambridge campus (Cos 124) or on Teams for a talk from artist Issam Kourbaj.

Found Objects, Lost Places

Issam Kourbaj will give an illustrated talk tracing the path of his life and artistic journey, shaped by childhood in Syria, years of exploration, and the shifting landscapes of exile and belonging. He will reflect on his fascination with found materials – objects marked by weathering, use, and abandonment – and how these fragments become vessels of new meaning in his work.

For fourteen years, Issam has created a sustained artistic response to the ongoing tragedy in Syria. Through drawing, sculpture, installation, and the transformation of discarded things, he asks how art can witness loss while still making room for hope.

Issam comes from a background of fine art, architecture and theatre design. He was born in Syria and trained at the Institute of Fine Arts in Damascus, the Repin Institute of Fine Arts & Architecture in Leningrad (St Petersburg) and at Wimbledon School of Art (London). He has lived and worked in Cambridge since 1990, becoming an Artist in Residence at Christ’s College, a Bye-Fellow (2007-2011) and a Lector in Art.

His work has been widely exhibited and collected, featured in several museums and galleries around the world at: The Fitzwilliam Museum, Museum of Classical Archaeology and Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge; British Museum and V&A, London; Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam; Penn Museum, Philadelphia, Brooklyn Museum, New York; the Venice Biennale; and the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds.

No need to book – just turn up or join online.