Traveling project encourages conversation about Iraq
Authors, poets and journalists were a common sight on Baghdad’s Al-Mutanabbi Street-a lively cultural haven once buzzing with excitement. On March 5, 2007, however, the action was halted when a car bomb killed 38 people and injured hundreds of others, shutting down the street until December 2008.
Authors, poets and journalists were a common sight on Baghdad’s Al-Mutanabbi Street-a lively cultural haven once buzzing with excitement. On March 5, 2007, however, the action was halted when a car bomb killed 38 people and injured hundreds of others, shutting down the street until December 2008.
Friday, students will have a chance to see one of the cars destroyed in the blast at the Park Plaza (between Hibbs and Pollack ) from 1-5 p.m. The traveling project, “It Is What It Is: Conversations About Iraq,” by English artist Jeremy Deller, will also present an artist talk at 11 a.m. with guest speakers Esam Pasha, a painter, writer and journalist from Iraq and Jonathan Harvey, a platoon sergeant in the U.S. Army since 1997. Assistant professor Hope Ginsberg was a driving force in bringing the project to VCU said Tom Gresham, VCU’s public relations specialist.
Pasha said he would like to inform people about Iraqi culture and daily life-details he said the media chooses not to focus on.
“There’s a colorful history and elements people don’t know about,” Pasha said.
Pasha said his experience, combined with Harvey’s, will provide participants with different points of view of Iraq.
“(It’s) not put in a media-edited form (and) not directed to (a) certain direction,” Pasha said.
