Open Shutters: Iraq Through the Eyes of its Women
In 2006, photojournalist, Eugenie Dolberg, brought together a group of Iraqi women from 5 cities in Iraq – Baghdad, Basra, Mosul, Kirkuk and Falluja – to take part in an extraordinary participatory photography project, called Open Shutters Iraq.
The women met in Damascus and learning the photographic process, compiled ‘life-maps’, using old photographs, autobiographical details and poetry, representations charting the emotional turning points in their lives. They shared stories of their lives inside post-Saddam Iraq; their childhoods, their struggle for education, loves and betrayals, births and deaths, wars, abductions, violence and acts of daily resistance. They then returned to Iraq and, under extremely difficult and circumstances, shot photo-stories, which expressed, in a deeply personal way, how they felt about what was happening around them.
Lulua’s story tells how she was abducted whilst walking home from work. When she was released, her husband would not accept that she hadn’t been raped, their relationship ruined. Her photos explore the isolation she felt from her family when she returned. All of the women’s stories are poignant and captured beautifully in their photography.
A fundraiser is being held at The Calthorpe Project in Kings Cross, London, on Sunday 5th July to raise money for the project. open_shutters_iraq_invitation
The shattered lives of women–I hope to view this work in some form in the future. Much needed exposure to the lives of people OUTSIDE fo the USA.