I found our visit to the Hiwa K Gallery to be very intriguing. On this visit, most of my time was spent roaming through the gallery trying to experience all the works in order to gather information about them. Each piece had a different effect on me. The piece that induced the most profound emotional reaction for me was the video “This Lemon Tastes of Apple.” Hiwa K was in the protest himself. It is unique that the artist is in his own piece, showing that he wanted to fully experience what was going on around him. The video shows how the people of Kurdistan were attacked by teargas by their own government. The gas smelled of apples, and the lemons were used as detoxifying agents. The sheer havoc of the scene showing the civil protest being attacked by the tyrannical government produced a profound emotional reaction. It was very sad to see the people of a nation being attacked by their own government. A key part of the scene was the audio, which we listened to through headphones that allowed the viewer to be fully immersed in the video. The audio showed how eerie the environment was and how the social unrest caused intense panic.
