Ruins, Rubble and Renewal
This ongoing research project Ruins, Rubble, and Renewal: Exploring Iraq’s Mesopotamian Past through Contemporary Art is led by the Iraqi-British artist and academic Hanaa Malallah, working in collaboration with local Iraqi artists at specific ancient sites inside Iraq.
This long term, interdisciplinary collaborative project seeks to address how it might be possible to have renewed engagement with ancient Mesopotamian heritage sites – specifically at Ur, Uruk, Babylon, Nippur, Nimrud, and the Archaeological Museum in Baghdad – in post-conflict Iraq. The project has the specific decolonising agenda of exploring the critical question of how such artistic interventions, by local artists at these sites, can enable a renewed engagement with this ancient heritage and history through direct engagement with this ancient landscape. The project explores the capacity for a form of artistic research that attends to its political and social context, and to a new aesthetic where this ancient Mesopotamian heritage, known in the West as “the cradle of civilization” is reclaimed for Iraq’s current traumatic identity, and for its people’s future, putting the ownership of this civilisation into question.
Our collaborative research engages with this ancient heritage as a reciprocal relationship with the unbroken continuity of its history; where ruins and its attendant rubble enable creative responses where past and present merge into new possibilities – as renewal.
مشروع بحثي طويل الامد. اوجد من قبل الفنانة والاكاديمية العراقية البريطانية هناء مال الله . وبالتعاون مع فنانين عراقيين داخل العراق يعيشون وبشكل خاص قرب المناطق الاثارية لوادي الرافدين . عنوان المشروع والذي هو ذاته اسم للجماعة المؤسسة والموقع الالكتروني هو : (٣ آ) (آثار ، وآنقاض، وآستئناف)
هذا المشروع الجماعي والمتعدد التخصصات هدفة قائم على التساؤل عن امكانية استكشاف رؤية جديدة على الصعيد البحثي والجمالي التي قد تتحقق من خلال اعادة معايشة بقايا الخرائب واثار وادي الرافدين واعادة استكشافها بواسطة ادوات الفن المعاصر كممكانات لايجاد هوية للمعايششين فعلا للمناطق الاثارية والمدن القائمة على التخوم.
حتى الان المشروع قائم على البحث في اربعة مواقع اثارية وهي: بابل، واور، ونفر ، ونينوى , اضافة الى بحث في متحف الاثار في بغداد. المشروع يتساءل وبشكل خاص عن كيفية نزع الرؤية الاستعمارية الكولونية عن مواقع الاثار في ميسوبوتاميا ومن خلال التساؤل المحرج والمهم وهو كيف مشروع بحثي فني وبمشاركة فنانين وباحثين عراقيين قادر على اعادة الاستكشاف وبناء علاقة مختلفة جديدة مع الاثار.
المشروع يحاول استكشاف امكانيات الادوات الفنية المستجدة والطرق والبحثية واستخدامها كادوات للمتهيد لتغير النظرة السياسية والاجتماعية لارث وادي الرافدين، وبالمقابل ايضا سوف يساعد على تطوير هذه الادوات وانتاج اعمال فنية وبحوث بطرق غير مسبوقة تخص منطقة معروفة عند الغرب على انها مهد لكل الحضارات وجذر لحضارة الغرب وهي مطلوبة الان من قبل العراقيين على انها هوية وارث محلي واساس للمستقبل لساكنين ارض وادي الرافدين الان.
Team biographies
Dr Hanaa Malallah
Project Principal Investigator and founder
Malallah studied Fine Art in Baghdad where she later became a renowned teacher. In 2006, Malallah left Iraq for an artist residency in Paris, then in 2008 took up a fellowship at SOAS, London.
Reyah Abd Al-Redah
Artist
Born in 1978 in Al Nasiriyah and gained a BA in Fine Art from Baghdad University in 2000. Currently teaching and living in
Al Nasiriyah, she has exhibited locally and internationally.
Fatimah Jawdet
Artist
Born in 1993, Jawdet has a Master of Arts Education, currently working in theatre and performance, winning several awards and honours. Jawdet participated in Evil Flowers in Poland, Unsoluble Women, Alkamar Femel, as well as Play Room in The Netherlands.
Rozghar Mustafa
Artist
Born in Sulaimania Kurdistan, Mustafa gained an MA in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Art, London in 2013 and currently teaches in the Institute of Fine Art in Sulaimania. Working across different media, Mustafa’s practice deals with questions of transformation, conflict and gender, trauma and fear.
Betoul Mahdey
Artist
Mahdey is a British-Iraqi photojournalist born in Iraq, living in London since 1990 receiving a BA from Chelsea College of Art, London in 2010, and also a BA in Photojournalism from LCC, London in 2014. Mahdey returned to Baghdad in 2016 working on exhibiting in Iraq and abroad.
Mohammed Abd Al Wasi
Artist
Iraqi artist lives and works in Babylon, Iraq. Born in 1986, receiving a BA from Babylon College of Arts in 2008, then MA in 2008 from the same collage. Practicing as performance artist.
Kadhim Nwir
Artist
Artist and academic lives in Nippur.
Paul Collins PhD
Keeper of Middle East at The British Museum. Archaeologist with specialist in Ancient Mesopotamia.
Dr Mo Throp
Co-investigator and project partner
Throp is an artist and Associate Researcher at Chelsea College of Arts, London concerned with issues of feminism, identity and post-colonialism. Throp works as an artist, teacher, curator and writer.
Dr Annie Webster
Researcher
Prof Zainab Bahrani
Archaeologist, consultant
Prof Nada Shabout
Art Historian
Dr Kiersten Neumann
Art historian, archaeologist, curator, consultant
Neumann specializes in the art, archaeology, and cultural heritage of ancient West Asia, with a focus on Mesopotamia. Born in Vancouver, Canada, she lives in Chicago and is Curator at the ISAC Museum and Lecturer in the Department of Art History, University of Chicago.
Abbas Al Saadi
Document researcher for the project, based in Baghdad