Visualizing Iraqi Politics & Cultures in Iraq and Diaspora

PANEL DISCUSSION

Visualizing Iraqi Politics & Cultures in Iraq and Diaspora
Friday, February 16, 2007, 6:30 p.m.
The New School, Wollman Hall, 65 West 11th Street,
5th floor
(enter at 66 West 12th  Street)
New York City

Admission:
Free for Center for Book Arts members &
New School faculty,
staff and alumni with valid ID$10
$5 for student and faculty of other universities
$10 for general public

In the 1960s and 1970s, Baghdad emerged as a vital cultural center in the Arab world. After the devastation of the Hussein regime, and the developing civil war now,how do Iraqi artists today cope with the daily physical challenges most of us can barely imagine? In particular, the panelists will explore the proliferation of the book as an art form pursued by contemporary Iraqi artists, the relationship between Islamic manuscripts and contemporary book art, notions of identity and resistance to the erasure of identity, and the experience of exile.

Panelists:
Hashim al-Tawil, Professor of Art History,
Henry Ford Community College;
Lecturer in Islamic Art and Architecture and in Arab Studies,
University of Michigan-Dearborn

Sharokin Betgevargiz, artist;
Lecturer in History of Graphic Design,
Central Connecticut State University

Michael Rakowitz, artist,
Associate Professor in Art Theory and Practice,
Northwestern University

Ella Shohat, Professor in departments of Art,
Public Policy, and Middle Eastern Studies,
New York University