video / 7:09
Mustafa Hashem on the Southern Iraqi Marshes
Ahwari activist Mustafa Hashem provides context to Tamara Abdul Hadi's exhibition 'Re-Imagining Return to the Marshes'
Virtual remarks by Mustafa Hashem, an Ahwari activist from the Maysan province in Iraq, provide context to the exhibition Tamara Abdul Hadi: Re-Imagining Return to the Marshes, delivered as part of an in-person panel discussion held in the U of T Scarborough Instructional Centre Atrium on November 6, 2024.
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
In Re-Imagining Return to the Marshes (August 28, 2024 - May 11, 2025) artist Tamara Abdul Hadi explores the genesis and proliferation of imperial images of the Southern Iraqi Marshes in response to the influential 1977 book 'Return to the Marshes', by British writer and photographer duo, Gavin Young and Nik Wheeler. By visiting and photographing the marshlands anew, Abdul Hadi creates digital interventions that layer new meaning atop Young and Wheeler’s original pages. Abdul Hadi's ongoing project advances a decolonial visuality that speaks to current, transdisciplinary debates about environmental transformations in the wake of modern colonial projects of statecraft, industrialization, and urbanization.
Presented as part of the 2024/2025 Jackman Humanities Institute Artist-in-Residence program, a partnership between the Jackman Humanities Institute, and the Department of Historical & Cultural Studies, Department of Arts, Culture & Media, and Doris McCarthy Gallery, U of T Scarborough.
