Art of the Fallen

A key and common theme revolves around melancholy, which is depicted in many artworks and are reproduced here to underline the significance of those issues associated with loss and death. In a country that has seen millions of deaths, whether in the Iran-Iraq War, Gulf War of 1991 or under US-UK led sanctions in the 1990s or again because of the US invasion of Iraq and its aftermath, melancholy represents a rich source of evocative symbolism that is expressed in Iraq whether in art, poetry, song or more broadly in the repertoires of everyday Iraqi life. It is not surprising then that the artwork of the October 2019 protest was depictive of an accumulative assemblage of real events that ripped asunder Iraqi society and saw the deaths and displacement of many in the last four decades. As we see, the body of Iraqi visual art is pervaded by notions of death, loss, and melancholy, which is put to effective visual and often graphic use by Iraqi protest artists. 

Feelings of desolation that characterises a significant swath of art in Iraq are also intertwined with notions of resilience. A key theme that emerges from speaking with artists about their artwork is the notion of overcoming and resisting. Indeed, it is in a context of hardship and pain that artists, whether in Iraq or outside the country, produced their artworks. It defines in large part the constitution of a new generation of activist artists – especially participating directly in city squares - or those who more emphatically identified with the protests themselves but did so from a relatively safer distance. 

As a corollary, the artist as a vehicle for social catharsis - for explaining and coming to terms with death and the grimness that Iraq has been exposed to - is considered here within Iraq’s own social and political context. We see this poignantly in one of the main slogans of protestors - ‘we want a homeland’ – a call that symbolises the bleakness of everyday life and the absence of life’s basic necessities but also the hope for a better life and a state that represents the interests of its people. 

Various manifestations of catharsis are also represented in the artwork. We see the act of drawing or participating in producing art for a common cause is itself part of a process of attempting to ameliorate the harmful long-term effects of seeing your country collapse and its manifold implications on the constitution of human capacity. This recurrent theme that embodies the ability of humans to come to terms with their own selves – through specific actions of expression, however defined – is a recurrent one that underlines the protestors’ continued perseverance and attempt to maintain a semblance of normalcy. Importantly, this research also speaks about the mental difficulties that artists as well as protestors endured during this period. This is vividly illustrated in art, whether directly with the artist cognisant of his or her mental state or as represented in the art itself. In either case, artists dealt with a significant degree of stress, which has not discussed elsewhere, and which is explored through interviews in this project. Expression, in this case, is a cathartic process or act, and it can pertain to the collective experience of drawing side by side on a wall – especially the Tahrir Square murals – or through the production of individual pieces that are then displayed to the general public. Those cathartic acts, as we see here, are understood through the personal statements and perspectives of the artists as well the artwork itself.