Art as a form of protest
Iraq’s national protest movement constituted a major shock to the country’s post-2003 politics. Whilst protests have erupted during different periods of time, the October 2019 demonstrations in major Iraqi cities, including Baghdad, Najaf, Nassriyah and Basrah, represented a movement that asked for nothing less than complete overhaul of the way in which the country has been managed. Those calls for change by Iraq’s youth, who make up most protestors, have been represented in thousands of new art works that explored themes of religion, women’s rights, dignity, foreign interference and corruption.
This project explores those themes, examining how the past and symbols of renewal and protest have been negotiated and expressed in new, creative and artistic ways to contest the status quo and envision an Iraq that is representative and responsive to the needs of its people. The project captures this moment in Iraq’s recent history, analysing the creation of a new body of public art - effectively a cultural archive connected to recent political events - and explores the ways in which protests and calls for change have been expressed through Iraqi artists.
The body of visual artwork produced since October 2019 was inspired by the changing trajectories of the protests. It is due to the events of the protests and the ways in which they evolved in Iraq that we witness a great wealth of diverse art produced in response to those everyday events. With a view to shedding light on those dynamics, the project documents Iraq’s Protest Movement since October 2019 – known as ‘Tishreen Revolution in Iraq – through an analysis of murals, graffiti, posters, photography, painting, photo-montage and still images produced by professional and amateur artists. It critically explores the uses of heritage and in particular Iraq’s cultural past – namely pertaining to Sumer, Babylon and Assyria but also other symbols of Iraqist identities – as a reflection of protestors’ pursuit of alternative representations of Iraq. In this sense, the Iraq Protest Movement whilst calling for political change was also a platform for imagining a new future for Iraq using its rich culture.
This project centred artists as key actors in the Iraq’s protest movement. Their actions that are pursued in response to protest dynamics are constantly changing and artists and protestors alike found themselves continuously negotiating their presence and participation in the projects, whether in places like Tahrir Square or from further afield. We tried to capture those responses as they are significant to understanding not only motivations for their participation in protests but how artists’ actions influenced their own and collective forms of cultural production. It can explain much about the background to the artwork that this study is concerned with.
This study explored key themes associated with how visual art was deployed to contest sectarian and religious narratives, which have dominated Iraqi daily life since 2003, and which continue to be reproduced in Iraq’s sectarian and political quota-based system known as ‘Muhasasa’. It also examines the ways in which the pertinent issues of dignity, gender and corruption have been expressed through the eyes of young artists who effectively became the voice of the movement.
Ethical Responsibilities to Artists
Due to the continuing harassment of artists in Iraq who participated in the protests in 2019 and 2020, we were careful to omit the names of artists for those that requested it. The images used here were accredited to those who have produced the artwork and who have also given permission to use. In some cases, some images have names omitted meaning that for reasons of safety the artist wished not to have his or her name displayed. These pieces act as a reminder of the continuing and organised threats that artists continue to endure and the fact that many were individually requested by individuals from militia groups to delete their artwork, often contacting them and their families through social media to issue threats.
“It was never known who wrote many of the slogans or poems for the protests because that is dangerous. I also wrote them in a way that would not trace back to me.” Iraqi Artist from Wasit province.
That artists who use their creative skills to describe and engage with Iraq’s political problems should continue to be threatened, long after the protests have ended, amounts to a concerted effort to erase the memory of the 2019 October protests as well as silence symbols of discontent. For these reasons, we were deeply sensitive to the concerns and apprehension of artists we had communicated with and interviewed. They were under constant surveillance on social media for any signs of old works appearing or new ones being added. For these reasons, the majority of artists in Iraq removed their artwork from public display as there was, in a state of collapse, no real government or justice system to confer a semblance of protection from those that threatened them. They were, in sum, on their own.
In many cases, artists who covered the protests had to escape their homes for the relative safety of other provinces – sometimes for a few days or a few weeks – until they were, for lack of money or sufficient support, forced to return. in other cases, they were assassinated or driven to leave the country altogether. The very real threat of assassinations or being physically harmed is one of the major overarching fears that were expressed. It is also an acknowledgment that artists – whether now or in the future – continue to pose a threat to Iraq’s post-2003 politics and the status-quo of the growth of militia groups – who have, like ruling political parties in the country, a keen interest in the uses of art and culture for political purposes.
