Baghdad artists reimagine Iraq in the public sphere
From dangerous migrations by sea to the prevalence of plastic waste, young Iraqi artists highlight past and present troubles through street art.
BAGHDAD — “One day Baghdad will go back to its glorious times of beauty,” Hussein Motar, an engineering student and photographer, told Al-Monitor during Baghdad Walk, a narrative walking tour and exhibition about the Iraqi capital. “We are trying to tell the history of Baghdad and raise our voices, to reach the government, to make some major adjustments and changes in historical places destroyed or abandoned.”
Motar chose Rasheed Street, one of the main thoroughfares in downtown Baghdad, as the location to exhibit his photographic project. The street dates to the Ottoman era.
