PeaceReporter - Scrawls of War

26/04/2055 versione stampabile

Graffiti of protest in Iraq and Palestine. According to Arofish, non-violence is creativity

Which are your favourite artworks among those you realized in Middle East? Would you give me a brief description of them and of their meaning?

I suppose the ones that speak back to me most are what I call the "Ghost Album". Some were done in Iraq and some in Palestine. They portray "ordinary" (fictitious) local people, life sized, on war-damaged surfaces; walls scarred and ruined by bullets and heavier things. The people are painted so as to seem aware of the camera eye;

as people in areas like those often are. Of these, I think the best was the Old Palestinian man from Nablus or the 3 kids in Jenin, West Bank. The Family Portrait in Baghdad worked quite well also.

What effect do you hope your paintings will have on the Iraqi or Palestinian peoples? What do you think that the U.S. or Israeli soldiers thought when they noticed them?

The highest reward for my work would be for local people to accept and like it.

I was conscious that this was something missing when I exhibited photos of the work in a venue in London a few months ago.

The places speak of the people who live in them. Apparently some of my work is still around in Palestine, nearly a year later.

I've no idea what the Israeli soldiers would have thought. The only graffiti in Palestine is pretty basic propaganda stuff. I expect the American soldiers in Iraq thought I was just one of those inevitable screwheads that seem to appear in such environments.

Do you think that the security situation in Iraq is now compromised? Would you go back there now?

Right now I can’t afford it, and sometimes I think having no money is what has kept me alive! As I said before, I don't want to travel under the restraints of official categorizations, with arranged visits, hired security, groups, itineraries, welcoming committees, etc. I never have. I go where I like when I want and I take my life in my own hands. And unlike a lot of other "activists" who come back from Iraq and do endless speaking tours to promote themselves, I don't want to pay some local guy a local wage to take a bullet for me; even if I could afford to. Unfortunately, not to do so would be possible suicide now, a year later. And I locate that change right at the time those photos came out of Abu Ghraib prison. That's when the beheadings started. In a certain sense, those photos did more harm than bombs.

Naoki Tomasini