Because... there was and there wasn't a city of Baghdad

Artist/Creator: Jamelie Hassan (Artist)
Date: 1991
ID #: BG2697

Physical Description

Medium: billboard, digital print, ink
Support: –
Dimensions: 385 cm 650 cm (Object)
(Dimensions of the billboard installation at the Belkin Art Gallery, 2005-2011.)
Object Description: Because... there was and there wasn't a city of Baghdad features a photograph that Jamelie Hassan took on her first visit to Baghdad, Iraq, in the late 1970s when she studied Arabic at the University of Mustansyria. The photo shows the iconic tiled dome and minaret of a Baghdad mosque, and the text evokes Arabic literary traditions as exemplified in One Thousand and One Nights. Hassan conceived this project as a billboard in 1991 as a response to the Gulf War, a conflict between Iraq and a United Nations-sanctioned coalition of forces led by the United States. Within six months of the beginning of the war, hand-painted versions of Hassan's billboard were exhibited in the city centres of Windsor and London, Ontario. In 1992, it was displayed in downtown Vancouver at the intersection of Richards and Pender Streets. The work was exhibited on the exterior of the Belkin as a printed banner from 2005-2011, and has been presented in the past as a postcard and as a lightbox.

Because... there was and there wasn't a city of Baghdad asks us to consider how a city is imagined and erased in regimes of representation, regimes that instruct us how to respond to those others with whom we are at war. It is a powerful incitement to use one's imagination to resist such representations and to empower oneself. Hassan's evocative combination of text and image retains currency in our contemporary world, speaking to the current context of politics, economics and international conflict we are seeing now.

History

Collection: Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery Permanent Collection
Credit Line: Purchased with support from the Canada Council for the Arts Acquisition Assistance Program and Salah Bachir, 2005
Related Exhibitions: Outdoor Screen: Jamelie Hassan

Navigate Fonds

Descriptions are works in progress and may be updated as new descriptive practices, research and information emerge. To help improve this record, please contact us.