Jerusalem

Jerusalem. The darkness that hangs over the city doesn't fade with the sun. The depth of the land doesn't shallow like its dry sea beds. The history doesn't renew, the present its living doesn't get written down in history. Today, Jerusalem is dying, like her sister Baghdad. They both lie on the deathbeds, waiting for a presence as strong as they once were to rescue them.
A prison for one, security for another. Both jails. Steel and concrete make toxic the landscape. And what a landscape...
A landscape for the narrow-minded.
Jerusalem. Her ghosts deny her her right to live the present moment, always suffering the history of her loaded land. Loaded guns, settlers and soldiers. When has identity become a crime? A man, her son, stands up for himself, handing his identity papers to an identity in crisis, clothed in fatigues. Her sons fatigued from the harassment and the humiliation they endure on a daily basis.
Shoved down our throats, we choke. Suffocated. The city, suffocated.
Is this what our prophets would have wanted us to do with their teachings? In the land they made holy? In the belly of the beast, we choke on its bile.
We reach Jerusalem in search for salvation, a selfish salvation that leaves us blind to the struggles of mankind. Because man is one, but divided. We reach Jerusalem in a state of willful blindness, maintaining us through our journey of personal salvation. A selfish race, is the human race.
Deeper than one can ever imagine, Jerusalem's roots are rotting beneath her divine earth.
Jerusalem is ours, it is the center of our universe, as Baghdad is the sun. Jerusalem remains frozen in time, while Baghdad reverts back.
Its a strange time today and always, forever and never, when one must focus on their breath to remember they exist and not fade like her glorious empires.
Corruption and repulsion, revelations obscured.

Bir Zeit

I was able to make it to Palestine because I was invited to take part in the Al-Mahatta International Artists Workshop. 20 artists from all around the world gathered together at the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music in the West Bank town of Birzeit to create art, brought together by the wonderful people at Al-Mahatta Gallery.
The weeks before my arrival to Palestine, I had been going through a serious catharsis, in all senses of the word. When it came down to my own art practice, after completing Warchestra, I was searching for a new direction to my work. Finding myself pushing further and further away from politics, a world from which I felt was bottomless, and my own reassessment towards my identity as an Iraqi, I felt lost. Wounded emotionally and spiritually by what was happening politically in Iraq, I was trying to further myself from those two elements. However, upon arriving in Palestine, focus fell on politics and identity. Non-surprisingly, of course. Whatever I tried to push away from my spirit came back stronger, pushing harder towards me, almost forcing me to accept its presence in my life. Yes, I am a politicized identity, as we all are. Yes, I am Iraqi, and I am proud to be an Iraqi. Instead of allowing these two factors to be a weight upon my shoulders, a darkness enveloping my creative sphere, a public burden, I accepted them. I still don't know how the shift occurred, or what the pivotal moment was.

The work I created in Palestine is personal, rather than political. But of course, as a politicized identity, the personal is always political. In collaboration with my sister Tamara's photography, these paintings are about hope, imagination and freedom. They can be set in Palestine, Iraq, or anywhere in the world where walls separate the people, and children must dream of a brighter future.

I took this aerial photograph of Baghdad in December 2009.

The book, "Souls Land: Closing" is made of my photographs taken in Baghdad in 2004 and 2009. This personal book offers glimpses into Iraq through my eyes. It is about my own search for identity, my love for my homeland, and the devastation it has suffered as a result of the ongoing war.
Displacement, distance, and devastation.
In a way, this book is a symbolic closing of a chapter in my life.

I don't know what else I can say about my experience in Palestine without stripping it of its authenticity. I think its best to keep it as it is and allow for this period in my life to come out through my future work, and not these limiting words.

"The visible world was made to correspond the the world invisible and there is nothing in this world but is a symbol of something in that other world."

(Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazzali, 11th Century)

Palestine

18 days in Palestine, and I long for more. In those 18 days, I did not read the news once. I did not involve myself in the political happenings of the country. I did not write a single sentence. And now, across its borders, I find myself trying to write about my experience and just can't feel authentic about it. Who am I to give my opinion about what is going on in Palestine? What can I say about that loaded land without being redundant, or predictable? Yes, Palestine is not my country, but I feel Palestinian. The whole world should feel Palestinian. Just as Palestinians feel Iraqi, and feel for Iraq as it is their own heritage that is being sold to the devil.
What can I say to make the world realize that what is going in within the borders of that land is pure crime, injustice at its best? The enemy is clear, the crimes are outright. What can I say to the willfully blind?


I did not read the news, but I had a politicized experience. Witnessing the daily lives of Palestinians both in 48 and the West Bank was shocking. The question that kept on my mind is, which is worse for our people? Life in 48, otherwise known as "Israel", or the the West Bank? Having your language wiped away, constantly being reminded of the occupation in the form of soldiers, street names, and flags? Or having zero mobility and contained in a prison cell in the shape of a city?


I still can't get myself to write about this experience. It was too deep, too intense, too self-reflective, and too symbolic to be written into these simple words. Or even to be shared with the world. I feel little, compared to what is happening. I feel small next to the vastness of its history and significance.

I urge everyone to visit Palestine and see for themselves.