VCU Photography & Film to welcome Iraqi guest artist

Mechelle Hankerson
Staff Writer

In a timely and unique opportunity for VCU students, VCUarts Department of Photography and Film will bring the insights of Iraqi-born artist Wafaa Bilal to VCU’s Singleton Center next week as a guest lecturer.

Bilal first received critical acclaim for his 2007 piece, titled “Domestic Tension.” In the performance art piece, Bilal spent one month in a gallery space, solely connected to the outside world via a camera with Internet access. Also in the space was a remote-controlled paintball gun. Viewers could interact with Bilal, but they could also choose to activate the paintball gun and shoot Bilal.

Most of Bilal’s works focus on relevant issues like the condition of everyday Iraqi life and the need for peaceful conflict resolution.  In “Domestic Tension,” Bilal wanted to recreate the feelings of the Iraqi people by demonstrating the restrictions they endure in trying to avoid the war around them.

By broadcasting the piece over the internet and making it interactive, he is showing how something seemingly unreal can quickly become real.

Most recently, Bilal completed his “…and Counting” piece, another performance piece paying tribute to Iraqi deaths that go largely unnoticed by the American public. Bilal’s own brother was killed by a missile in their hometown of Kufa in 2004, and “…and Counting” is a way to account for all deaths, American and Iraqi, in Iraq.

In the 24-hour performance, Bilal gets a tattoo of a borderless map of Iraq and dots to correspond to deaths in different parts of the country. The 5,000 American deaths are visible red dots, while the 100,000 Iraqi deaths are in UV ink, only visible under black light. While Bilal was tattooed, people read the names represented by the dots on Bilal’s back. At the performance, Bilal also collected money for Rally for Iraq, which offers scholarships to Iraqi and American children who have lost a parent in the war.

Bilal’s work “should cause both art and non art students to consider the promising potential of new media strategies regarding political protest and critique,” said Photography and Film professor Paul Thulin.  ” Students will discover an artist that, creatively and profoundly, asks for their empathy and intellectual involvement with the situation in Iraq.”

VCU’s Department of Photography and Film will host the lecture session with Bilal on September 16 at the Singleton Center, from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m.

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