A Requiem for Baghdad: Postcards from a Crime Scene

Photographs by Nabil Salih

Gelardin Center Exhibit Area

"Stop, you two, and let us weep, for the memory of a beloved, and an abode".

With this line, the pre-Islamic Arab poet Imru` al-Qais opens his mu`allaqa. The photos here are from my walks in Baghdad, the city where I was born in 1992, one year after the Gulf War annihilated thousands of Iraqis and brought the country to its knees. Even those who survived the bombing were not safe: the imposition of UN sanctions killed thousands more through malnutrition and lack of medication. I survived, many children were sent to their graves early.

These photos show life in a crime scene. They carry the smiles of some, and contain the absence of many. Twenty years ago in March 2003, war revisited Iraq in the name of freedom. Millions of lives were (and are still) reduced to mere numbers in death tolls and refugee statistics — a corollary of the “War on Terror”. Twenty years on, the bombing and the sirens echo and wail inside my head. Listen, do you hear them?

Here/there, I roam the ruins of a securitized city, mourn its dead, lament our present, our past that remains on fire, and leave a kiss on Baghdad’s eyes from afar.

 

Read an extended interview with Nabil Salih about his life growing up in Baghdad and how his art depicts the everyday lives of survivors in a wounded city.

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Photograph of a man on a street in Baghdad taking a photo

Self-portrait on al-Rashid Street

Baghdad, September 2020

I love to walk…The poets and philosophers I read all loved to walk, or wrote about walking: Walter Benjamin, stoned on hashish in Marseille; Sargon Boulus in the canals of exile and dream. My most important works as a poet, journalist and photographer were about and from my walks in Baghdad. As for the self-portrait, I was always fascinated by the late Vivian Maier and her iconic self-portraits in Chicago’s Loop.

An old man with a cane sits in front of buildings that are cracked and damaged

Old man by the door

Baghdad, November 16, 2020

A portrait hanging over the door mourns the loss of Razan, a child who perished in a “tragic accident.” 
What happened to her?
 

A man with a head scarf looks directly at the camera. Several other men in the background drink tea and talk, some are wearing face masks since the photo was taken during the COVID 19 pandemic

Men at a tea house

Baghdad, June 22, 2020

“Those about whom we hear no news
Those who are remembered by none:
What wind has swept their traces
as if they never were?
My father and the others
Where are they?
Where?” - Sargon Boulus (tr. Sinan Antoon)
 

The photo shows man in traditional Iraqi clothing walking away from the camera across a bridge.

Man walks across the Martyr’s Bridge

Baghdad, October 22, 2020

“I came to you from there
It is annihilation
He said
Then he walked away and disappeared
Everywhere” - Sargon Boulus
 

An older man reads a newspaper. In the background we see the back of a woman in traditional Iraqi clothing and two men look directly at the camera. The men are smiling.

Man at a cafe on al-Rashid Street

Baghdad, November 16, 2020

The newspaper carries headlines about corruption, anti-Islamic State US-led coalition airstrikes and laws concerning Yazidi women who survived the Islamic State massacres. Nearby on the sidewalk, two men smile to a lady passing by in her black `Abaya.
 

Black and white photograph of an older man walking away from the camera. He is carrying a large fabric sack slung over his back. In the background is a busy street with people, cars, a bike, and a motorcycle.

Old man on al-Rashid Street

Baghdad, November 16, 2020

“Every year when the earth turned green the hunger struck us
Not a year has passed without hunger in Iraq.” 
- Badr Shakir al-Sayyab

Color photo of a sunset with gradient of color from purple to yellow to pink in the sky that is reflected in the water of the river. Children can be seen along the edge of the river in the distance. A city with buildings of varying heights is on the opposite side of the river.

Sunset on the Tigris

Baghdad, December 6, 2020

In taking these photos, I also had to navigate a securitized city. I captured this photo after being stopped and questioned three times by soldiers within 45 minutes for hanging a camera from my neck. Later that night, I was pulled by the arm by a soldier who forced me to show him each and every photo I took that evening to ensure my oeuvre entailed no captures of sensitive locations. The building across the river was bombed in 2003, and the bridge to the right in 1991.

Black and white photo of several children playing soccer at the base of long concrete steps in an empty lot of land. In the background is the lower portion of a large tower.

Kids play football in a western suburb

Baghdad, March 23, 2020

“The child plays
in time’s garden
but war calls upon her
from inside:
come on in!” - Sinan Antoon
 

Color photo showing the view of the Tigris River from a window.

The Tigris from a window

Baghdad, January 30, 2021
 

“The Tigris and Euphrates
are two strings
in death’s lute
and we are songs
…or fingers strumming.” - Sinan Antoon
 

Black and white photograph of 4 young Iraqi boys by the side of the road. In Mr. Salih's interview he says that the boys, "sold chewing gum to the few drivers on the street during a coronavirus curfew. They were happy, and laughed all the time."

Street urchins on a highway

Baghdad, April 17, 2020

The four children whose portrait you see in this photo are Abdul-Qayoum and his friends. They sold chewing gum to the few drivers on the street during a coronavirus curfew. They were happy and laughed all the time. I hope they are well today.

A color photograph of two boys sitting along the banks of the Tigris River. The sun is setting behind the city of Baghdad in the background.

Students on the Tigris bank

Baghdad, January 30, 2021

“I will go to the end of the universe
Joyful and free
Like an Arabian horse
Like myself.” - Saadi Youssef (tr. Sinan Antoon)
 

A black and white photograph of 2 young boys walking down a street with crumbling sidewalks and pillars behind them. A store advertises "Versace" and "Lacoste" in the background.

Two boys in al-Rashid Street

Baghdad, April 27, 2020

“I dreamt again of two colorful butterflies
pulling clouds toward joy
But the dream was interrupted by a dream
when I wondered:
How can butterflies live
and rejoice
in this overwhelming ruin?”
 - Mu'ayyad al-Rawi (tr. Sinan Antoon)

Black and white photograph of a man standing on a boat on the banks of the Tigris River. The city of Baghdad can be seen in the background.

Man and his boat on the Tigris

Baghdad, May 13, 2020

“Heavy with water
is the hair of the drowned man
Who returned to the party
After they turned off the lights
Piled the chairs on the barren riverbank
and chained the waves of the Tigris.” 
- Sargon Boulus (tr. Sinan Antoon)

A black and white photograph of a man sitting by himself on the banks of the Tigris River. The ground along the river is strewn with garbage (empty plastic bottles and debris).

Man on the Tigris

Baghdad, April 27, 2021

“Iraq will not return
The lark will not sing.” - Saadi Youssef
 

A color photograph of seven boys playing in the water of the Tigris River. The city of Baghdad can be seen in the background.

Children swim in the Tigris

Baghdad, June 19, 2021

The children you see swimming have to tip-toe their way into the waters over broken glass and litter. On the other bank is al-Madrasah al-Mustansiriyah, a house of learning from the Abbasid era, now left in limbo.

Black and white photograph of children playing in the Tigris River. A boy in the foreground stands on the banks of the river and looks directly at the camera. Five other boys play in the water and a boat with men can be seen in the background.

Children swim in the Tigris II

Baghdad, June 19, 2021

Color photograph of palm trees with the sun setting in the background.

Palm grove at sunset

Baghdad, June 2020

A black and white photograph of 4 men sitting behind tables with food and merchandise. One man wears a face mask and another has a face mask on his chin. The photo was taken during the COVID 19 pandemic.

Old men at a cafe

Baghdad, September 7, 2020

Black and white photograph of a man selling items on a sidewalk while a woman in traditional Iraqi clothing walks in the background

Al-Rashid Street in the morning

Baghdad, September 2020

An elderly woman in traditional Iraqi clothing stands in front of a poster with a photo of her dead son

Woman and her son

Baghdad, February 2021

Here, a woman stands with her son, or a poster of him plastered on a wall. He was killed somewhere in battle, as the poster reads “martyr.” Qasem Soleimani, the feared former head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps assassinated in Baghdad in 2020 by yet another US airstrike on the city, smiles from another poster at the anguished mother. “I want a picture with my son,” she told me.