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On 4th, 11th and 13th May 2012, the Enheduanna Society contributed to It Is What It Is: Conversations about Iraq, an installation by Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller. This installation was part of an exhibition entitled Joy In People at the Hayward Gallery in London’s Southbank Centre. |
It Is What It Is featured a car—shown below—that was wrecked in a terrorist attack in Baghdad in 2007. In 2009 Jeremy Deller, with an Iraqi citizen and an American soldier, took the wrecked car around the USA as ‘the conversation piece from hell’. Click here for more information.
The wreckage of the car was salvaged after a bomb blast in Baghdad’s historic centre, the Al-Mutanabbi book market in the city’s old quarter. Below are photographs of the book market before the attack and as it has been restored since the attack. Click here for more information about the Iraqi response to the terrorist attack.
Fran Hazelton and Badia Obaid told stories in English and Arabic about war and civil strife in Iraq 4000 years ago—The Cursing of the City of Agade and The Lamentation for the Destruction of Ur—which were written on clay tablets in Sumerian using cuneiform script. Badia also discussed how Baghdad, her home city, had changed during her lifetime, particularly as a result of its recent history.
Click on the thumbnails below to enlarge the images
