The Iraqi Art Project
The Iraqi Art Project presents Iraqi and American visual art, film, music, poetry, bookmaking, theater, and more to audiences throughout Minnesota and the U.S. Through interactive exhibits, storytelling labs, workshops, performances, lectures, and discussions, the Iraqi Art Project brings Iraqi and American artists, storytellers, and audiences together in meaningful dialogue.
Exhibitions
Our project has presented art and programming at more than 60 galleries and spaces in Minnesota and across the Midwest. We have presented six major visual art exhibitions: Art of Conflict (2010), Navigating the Aftermath (2011), Not About Bombs (2012), Lands of Water (2014), Home of Memories (2020-2022) Poetry Despite/Music Despite (2022).
“Through art, we can break down stereotypes and directly tell other Americans who we are and why we as new Americans are here.”
Iraqi Voices Arts Storytelling Lab
With our Iraqi Voices Arts Storytelling Lab, we create accessible spaces for critical conversations and provide high quality artistic platforms for Iraqi Minnesotans to share their stories. Iraqi Voices is an ongoing program that pairs Iraqi-Minnesotans with professional artists to create original artwork about their home, experiences, and lives in Iraq and Minnesota.
Home of Memories
Exploring homemaking and memories in the portraits of Iraqi Minnesotans, the Home of Memories exhibition features portraits by Iraqi Minnesotan photographers Ahmed Alshaikhli and Jaafar Alnabi and was curated by the CarryOn Homes collective. This lab invited participants and photographers to look both inward and onwards as they explored home. These portraits and stories give us a complex and intimate portrayal of what home was, is, and what it can be. So far, the exhibit has travelled to the Banfill-Locke Center for the Arts, the Rochester Art Center, and the Hennepin History Museum, and has been featured by Sahan Journal, the Star Tribune, and Minnesota Public Radio.
Through artist talks and storytelling circles, audiences get a look at the process behind the exhibition and the lives of the Iraqi Minnesotans it features. Recordings of these events are available to watch on YouTube.
Visitors to Home of Memories are invited to reflect on their personal definitions of home, sharing their thoughts in the form of writing or drawings on a postcard to be displayed as part of the exhibition.
“I want to share my personal story with the audience and let them know what happened in Iraq, but also what is happening in Iraq.
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Birds Sing Differently Here
In 2017, IARP’s Iraqi Voices program premiered our first theater production, “Birds Sing Differently Here.” Based on the true stories of 12 Iraqi-Minnesotans, “Birds Sing Differently Here” wove together stories of sweetness, sorrow, grief and discovery along the way. The project brought together a diverse, intergenerational group of Iraqi Minnesotans to tell their stories onstage to Twin Cities audiences. In 2019, the production toured to four cities and audiences across Minnesota.
“I wish all Americans could see this kind of performance. It is always important to get to know people and see them as individuals and not just numbers on the news.”
Documentary Films
Through the Iraqi Voices program, Iraqi-Minnesotans have created 14 short documentary films since 2012 that have been screened at venues and organizations like the Minneapolis Saint Paul International Film Festival, the Vail Film Festival in Colorado, the Walker Art Center, Mizna Arab Film Festival, Duluth Art Institute, Zeitgeist Arts, the University of Minnesota Immigration History Research Center, the Frozen Film Festival, MSP Airport See18 cinema, and many others. These events and discussions challenge attendees to examine their assumptions about Iraq, refugees, Arabs, Muslims, and provide opportunities to engage and build relationships across cultures.
““The films gave humanity to Iraqi-Americans, not just labeling them as immigrants or refugees, but scientists, engineers, doctors, students, business owners, school board members, and artists.” ”
View more Iraqi Voices documentary videos below:
Iraq Darkly
The Actor
Naser
The Barbershop
The Iraqi Dream
Travel Documents
That’s What We Hear on the News
Torn Between
The Fifty Generation
Jameela
Alice
Mohammed
Books by Iraqi-Americans and Iraqis
IARP previously collaborated with The Advocates for Human Rights, the Veterans Books Project, and artist Monica Haller on a book-making lab. The books tell the stories of the Iraqi authors.
