This series of photographic essays and texts by women from Baghdad, Basra, Falluja, Kirkuk and Mosul presents a view of everyday life experienced through conflict and behind news headlines.
The women who have taken part - none of whom were photographers or writers - felt compelled to tell their story, for themselves and for their children. These stories of human experience, of endurance and perseverance, of love and friendship are explored through a range of emotions from intimacy and humour to frustration, fear and grief.
Open Shutters Iraq was initiated and developed by Eugenie Dolberg, a photojournalist frustrated by the lack of access to ordinary Iraqi people, and by the limited perspective on the conflict offered by Government and military sourced news reports.
A series of talks accompanies the exhibition:
12 June: Conflict / Alan Ingram
Venue: Belfast Exposed, 2pm – 3pm
Dr Alan Ingram teaches political geography at University College London. He holds a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship for the project Art and War: Responses to Iraq, which explores how artists and art institutions in the UK reacted to the 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation. In this talk Alan will discuss two approaches to making work on the Iraq war currently on display in Belfast, through looking at the Open Shutters Iraq project at Belfast Exposed and Queen and Country by Steve McQueen showing at Golden Thread Gallery.
Please RSVP to: ciara@belfastexposed.org
13 June: Commemoration/ Hazel Francey
Venue: Belfast Exposed, 2pm – 3pm
Hazel Francey is the Good Relations Manager in Belfast City Council and is responsible for developing and implementing the equality, community relations, race relations and cultural diversity programmes. Hazel will discuss official city council strategies for commemorating historic events in Belfast as we enter a decade of anniversaries, with specific reference to the events of 1912-1914.
Please RSVP to: ciara@belfastexposed.org
14 June : Collecting / Sara Bevan
Venue: Golden Thread Gallery, 2pm – 3pm
Sara Bevan is a Curator at the Imperial War Museum. Sara will discuss the history of IWM’s unique art collection, their groundbreaking contemporary commissions scheme and their approach to contemporary collecting.
Please RSVP to: info@gtgallery.co.uk
15 June: Remembering / Triona White Hamilton
Venue: Golden Thread Gallery, 2pm – 3pm
Tríona White Hamilton is the Curator of Everyday Objects Transformed by the Conflict, an exhibition organized by Healing Through Remembering, a cross community organisation based in Belfast. The loaned exhibition items are everyday – but transformed by the conflict - or are sometimes extraordinary ones but transformed into everyday things by the conflict. Memories cling to these objects and their labels reveal stories of resistance, peace, anxiety, loss, violence, commemoration and humour.
Please RSVP to: info@gtgallery.co.uk
For further information visit www.goldenthreadgallery.co.uk and www.belfastexposed.org