★★★☆☆

Jala Wahid’s first solo show in Scotland includes a sculpture, light-work and soundtrack evoking the historic relationship between western Europe and Kurdistan. These regions are bound together by stories of colonial extraction and, particularly, by the geopolitics of oil. Conflagration focuses on the striking of the Baba Gurgur oil well in 1927, a site steeped in mythology whose ‘eternal fire’ had featured in religious lore for millennia, and whose discovery cemented imperial interest in Kurdish lands.

A hazy, polluted pink orb of light glows on one wall, a monument to the exact time oil was first tapped at Baba Gurgur. Casting Tramway’s front gallery in a pallid haze, ‘Sick Pink Sun (03:00 14.10.1927 – )’ may allude to the clouds of poisonous gas that spread over the nearby landscape for days afterwards. It shines upon a slick, fetishy plume of a sculpture, with a glowing pink heart. Both petroleum gush and floral bloom, the shape is partly that of Salvia spinosa, the only flower known to survive amid the shale of Baba Gurgur’s fields.

Meanwhile, a soundtrack rings out across the space, drilling and plaintive, consisting of a traditional funereal maqam (Arabic melody) interspersed with field recordings and the artist’s voice. A thematically precise show that requires a bit of contextual reading to unlock, Conflagration is an arresting prospect nonetheless.

Tramway, Glasgow, until Sunday 10 September.