Heja Netirk, born in 1988, is a Kurdish multidisciplinary artist from Mardin in Southeastern Turkey, living in Germany since 2018. She is a singer, actress, film producer. Heja Türk won a place as a Fulbright scholar on the Master’s program in Comparative Literature at Columbia University, but was unable to use her scholarship because she was imprisoned in Turkey. She studied English literature at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul.
In 2018 she produced the feature film Momê directed by Rodi Guven Yalcınkaya. The film was sold to Westdeutscher Rundfunk WDR. She plays the leading role in this film. In 2019 Türk and nine filmmakers founded the cinema collective AVA-Kino, the Kurdish cinema initiative in Hamburg. In 2020 she released her first music album Stranen Nushshti (Unwashed Songs). Her songs center on the oppression of women and the Kurdish condition.

 

Derî Lêket/Knock on the Door

Videoclip, songs

2019 ongoing

Hêja’s first maxi-single Stranên Neşuştî/Filthy Songs (2020) consists of three songs which focuses on three different types of loneliness. The song named NeNe/NoNo which appears to be a manifesto illustrating one day in the life of a housewife, highlights the unpaid domestic labor of a woman and her unfair loneliness. On the other hand the song named Derî Lêket/Knock on the Door depicts a woman who is boldly making fun of her loneliness. Lastly, in the song named Belkî/Maybe she sings about the historical loneliness of her people. All three songs have been composed by Heja. She also writes her own lyrics. Only the lyrics of Belkî are taken from poem 17 by Kurdish poet Roşeng Rojbîr. All three songs were composed by Hêja while she was imprisoned and they are a kind of resistance against her exile.

Derî Lêket, music video, 3'56"

Interview Heja Türk

Decolonize the Kurdish Art