Shafaq News- Al-Sulaymaniyah

In a crowded corner of Al-Sulaymaniyah’s markets, where vendors call out and shoppers weave through narrow aisles, Kurdish musician Ata Salhi draws a different kind of attention. He plays a kamancheh (a traditional bowed spike fiddle), but shaped like a broom.

The instrument, at first glance a curiosity, is deliberate. Salhi, a 30-year-old Kurd from Iran’s Kermanshah region, says the design carries a message that blends art, environmental awareness, and personal reflection.

“Music brings calm and clarity,” he told Shafaq News. “Cleanliness does the same. I shaped the kamancheh like a broom to show that even simple tools that serve people hold beauty and meaning.”

Salhi performs regularly in Al-Sulaymaniyah’s markets and previously in Kurdish cities across Iran and Turkiye. His instruments often break with convention, but he says they share a common purpose: linking daily life to artistic expression.

The broom, he explains, symbolizes more than sanitation. It reflects what he calls environmental consciousness, a reminder that the tools of street cleaners are not just work equipment but markers of civic responsibility. “Art is not just form,” he said. “It is a message. When I play, I try to connect the spiritual, social, and environmental dimensions of life.”

He relies on street performance for income, playing for donations from passersby. In Al-Sulaymaniyah, he says, audiences respond not only to the melody but to the idea behind it. “People smile first at the shape,” he said. “Then they think about what it means. That is when the message reaches them.”

Street art has gained visible ground in Al-Sulaymaniyah in recent years, reflecting a broader cultural vitality in public spaces. Musicians, painters, and performers increasingly use the city’s markets as stages for expression that intersects with social and environmental concerns.

For Salhi, the experiment is ongoing. “Everything around us can become music if we look at it with awareness,” he said. “Cleanliness is not routine work. It is a civilized act that shapes both the self and the environment.”

In a marketplace defined by noise and motion, his broom-shaped kamancheh turns a daily object into a statement, one that asks listeners to reconsider what they see, and what they value.