Tamziq: Scattered and Connected, A Conversation in Art by Middle Eastern and American Artists features local and international artists from the United States, and the Middle East and its Diaspora. Tamziq, mean-ing “torn” in Arabic, explores the connections and ruptures between artists and communities in the United States and the Middle East, with a focus on Iraq. Artists: AHMED ABDALLA, THAER ABDALLAH, JOCELYN AJAMI, BAN ALMAHFODH-GRAIME, ZAINABALI AL MEER, ELI ALPEROWICZ, WAFAA AL-SHIMRTY, NOUR ABDULKAREEM AL ZAMIL, THAMER DAWOOD, JIM LOMMASSON, ANNE LOYER, AMY BAXTER MACDONALD, RANIA MATAR, JAMES O’NEILL, ROBIN SHORES, MICHAEL TRAUB, and the Seeing Through Walls group: THAER ABDALLAH, ADNANE BENALI, PHYLLIS BLUHM, BEVERLY SHALOM, VIVIENNE SHALOM, RICHARD YOUNGSTROM

This project is supported by a CEIF grant from the University of Massachusetts President’s Office.

For more information: www.odysseusproject.org/tamziq.html

Tamziq: Scattered and Connected

CONTENTS

Introduction

Curatorial Statement

AHMED ABDALLAH

THAER ABDALLAH

JOCELYN AJAMI

BAN ALMAHFODH-GRAIME

ZAINABALI AL MEER

ELI ALPEROWICZ

WAFAA AL SHIMRTY

NOUR ABDULKAREEM AL ZAMIL

THAMER DAWOOD

JIM LOMMASSON

ANNE LOYER

AMY BAXTER MACDONALD

RANIA MATAR

JAMES O’NEILL

ROBIN SHORES

MICHAEL TRAUB

SEEING THROUGH WALLS: THAER ABDALLAH, ADNANE BENALI, PHYLLIS BLUHM, BEVERLY SHALOM, VIVIENNE SHALOM, RICHARD YOUNGSTROM

PROJECT PARTNERS

LIST OF WORKS ON EXHIBIT

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Editor: Joanne Jorgensen HardyCatalog Design: Anne LoyerCover: Image and title design: Anne Loyer; Artwook clockwise from left: James O’Neill, Thamer Dawood, Rania Matar, Amy Baxter MacDonald, Thaer Abdallah, Zainabali Al MeerInside Cover: Calligraphy by Hajj Wafaa Al ShimrtyInside Back Cover: Calligraphy by Hajj Wafaa Al Shimrty Back Cover: Eli AlperowiczPrinted: April 2013

The number of Iraqi refugees resettled in the United States has grown annually from only 202 in 2006 to approximately 17,000 in 2009. Since 2007, a total of 58,810 Iraqi refugees have arrived in the United States.[1] In the state of Massachusetts, Iraqis now form the largest refugee population.

At the same time that a growing number of refugees are resettling in Massachusetts, a large number of veterans are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. The collaboration between the Joiner Center* and the Odysseus Project** recognizes the increasing need for dialogue and exchange with and within these communities, and for a broadened under-standing of these cultural influences on our changing communities. This project seeks to create an opportunity for exploration and conversation about the impact of war on the communities and cultures of Iraqi and other Arabic refugees; the impact on education; and the related topics of gender, human rights, and storytelling, as well as the differences between American and Arabic perspectives.

The project is composed of four main parts: Artist Network, Exhibition, Theater and Education

Artist Network: For 8 months in 2012, local artists met to share work and ideas, and dis-cuss issues such as: the current context in the Middle East; identity as it relates to ques-tions of ethnic, religious, and national background; and responsibility and artmaking in response to the current context. These artists include: Thaer Abdallah, Jocelyn Ajami, Ban Al Mahfodh, Eli Alperowicz, Wafaa Al Shimrty, Anne Loyer, Amy MacDonald, Robin Shores, and Michael Traub. Because their work and lives were relevant to the themes in this show, we invited the following artists to participate: Ahmed Abdalla, Zainabal Al Meer, Nour Abdulkareem Al Zamil, Thamer Dawood, Jim Lommasson, Rania Matar, James O’Neill, and the Seeing Through Walls Group: Thaer Abdallah, Adnane Benali, Phyllis Bluhm, Beverly Shalom, Vivienne Shalom and Richard Youngstrom.

For information about other parts of the Tamziq project, see www.odysseusproject.org

[1]Iraqi Refugee Processing Fact Sheet, Retrieved on January 17, 2012 from: http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextchannel=68439c7755cb9010VgnVCM10000045f3d6a1RCRD&vgnextoid=df4c47c9de5ba110VgnVCM1000004718190aRCRD* &** - see Project Partners, page 20.

Stories told in this exhibition expose the heart and soul of our artists. The unifying element of this disparate collection of art works is their shared humanity. “Tamziq” includes American and Middle-Eastern artists who take on many roles in the telling of their stories. They are at once witness, archivist, architect, activist, critic, facilitator, dreamer and explorer. Nomadic in spirit, they physically or mentally cross borders of culture and language, spilling in all directions, expanding their own capacity for understanding, interpretation and synthesis. In turn, they enlighten us, the viewer.

Artists do not live in a space apart from politics or world events. Some of them have first-hand experience with war and exile in the Middle East, while others respond viscerally to newspaper reports, photographs or television coverage of conflicts. Other artists concern themselves with their cultural heritage by exploring the use of cuneiform markings or calligraphy. The exhibition offers a view of artists who wrestle with various contemporary issues and circumstances. Work produced is both timely and timeless.

We, as viewers, can aim to see these artists, not as a collective voice for a region, but as individuals, shaped by ideals, conflicts and the environment of their local culture. The thoughts and experiences of each artist are shaped by their unique beliefs and backgrounds.

Some of our artists explore the universal fragility of identity in young women and girls. The various images combine, forming a mental picture richer than the singular elements, thus enhancing a far-reaching dialogue about diversity and commonality. Other artists choose to examine culture critically through use of symbolic representation.

The way we perceive these works of art depends on many factors, not least of which is a sense of history, our own and that of the world. The goal here is to gain insight into seemingly divergent cultural perspectives in the hope of finding some common ground for an inspiring public discourse.

Artists bring the brain, as well as the soul, to the task of making art. Their work is infused with individual visions, contemporary or historical subject matter. Themes range over political, social and cultural realities. Our artists use painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, video and installation art to challenge us to see the world around us, enhancing our ability to understand and perhaps act on that understanding.

The present is saturated with personal and cultural memories. The artist’s gaze in “Tamziq” engages memory and its iconic, personal mnemonics but at the same time it also tackles the role of women; democracy, or the lack thereof; Islamic iconography; ancient Sumerian history; techniques of Arabic calligraphy and legends and mythology.

In the end, art-making is often just something one needs to do, but its power to summon an emotional response in its audience is evidence of its lasting value as a form of communication. The artists in “Tamziq” open their hearts while opening our minds.

Joanne Jorgensen Hardy, Guest Curator

Joanne Jorgensen Hardy has curated and co-curated several exhibitions, among them “Pictorial Photography, A Selection from Alfred Stieglitz’s Camera Work,” Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, MA; “In Spite of Everything, Yes”; the Hood Museum of Art, Hanover, NH, (book published by the University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque); “Intimations & Imaginings: The Photographs of George H. Seeley”; exhibition and catalogue sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the New England Foundation for the Arts (Catalogue recognized with awards from the New England Association of Museums and the American Association of Museums.). Joanne is a graduate of New York University and holds a BA degree in Art History, Ada Comstock Scholar, Smith College, Northampton, MA. She held internships at the Paul Strand Archive, Millerton, NY, the Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, MA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, NY. In addition, Joanne has been a fine-arts photographer for several decades, with work shown in New York City, Woodstock, NY, and Reading, PA. She currently runs her own video production company, Jorgensen Productions, specializing in serving non-profit agencies.

“The role of artworks is no longer to form imaginary and utopian realities, but to actually be ways of living and models of action within the existing real, whatever the scale chosen by the artist.” Nicolas Bourriaud*

Art is often born of pain and sorrow, it can be about unthinkable things seen or experienced. Art can explore issues of cultural identity; it can critically examine our poli-tics and religious practices; it can raise issues of displacement and exile; it can recall an-cient history, myths and legends; it can be a catalyst for social action; or it can be quietly meditative, a truly secular or devotional practice. Art exhibited in “Tamziq: Scattered & Connected” addresses all these issues, and then some, but above all, it is about storytelling.

*Nicolas Bourriaud ”Relational Aesthetics” p.13

Introduction

Curatorial Statement

AHMED ABDALLA

In melody and witness, there is anxiety about what is happening and what might never happen. There is frustration, sometimes, with the impossibility of communication.Humility and arrogance, power and greed, guilt, redemption, forgiveness, ambiguity, paradox and contradiction are all present...*Ahmed Abdalla

Ahmed Abdalla is an artist and curator from Egypt. He obtained a BFA in stage design from the Academy of Arts, Egypt, and a MFA degree from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Tufts University, Boston Massachusetts.

Abdalla served as co-curator of the 2012 “Histories of Now: Six Artists from Cairo” exhibition at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which brought together work by some of the most inspiring and influential video and new-media artists working in Egypt today; and the symposium “Histories of Now: Art, Digital Media + Contemporary Social Movements” which gathered mediamakers, designers, activists, and scholars, to share and develop vocabularies, research methods, preliminary conclusions, and future strategies for understanding and writ-ing the now and its multiple histories. The focus on three main points—the Contested Present, Condense/Disperse, and Future Tellings—formed the basis for a discussion of contemporary art, digital media and processes of social transformation with a special focus on the two cities engaged by this exhibition, Cairo and Boston.

Abdalla has shown his work in the United States and internationally. Locally he has shown at the DeCordova Museum, the Fuller Museum, Elias Fine Art, Boston and the CUE Foundation, NY and others. Internationally he has exhibited at the 10th International Biennial at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum in Taiwan, group and solo exhibitions in the Netherlands, Vienna and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Beijing, China. Abdalla has been honored by many awards and grants, such as the Joan Mitchell grant in New York and the Berkshire Taconic Foundation.

*Quoted in “Ahmed Abdalla” by Daylynn Richards, Brass Tea, 11.17.09, Retrieved 3.1.13 http://brasstea.blogspot.com/2009/11/ahmed-abdalla.html

THAER ABDALLAHI have loved to paint and draw since I was a child, when I discovered that art was a world so much larger than the one room which I shared with my parents and twelve siblings. I drew on everything-the walls, the door-to my mother’s chagrin! Today, I use art to express the pain and also the strength of my community in Baghdad and of those scattered as refugees in many corners of the world.

“Freedom” - A woman knits the Arab countries’ flags into one flag, symbolizing unity and freedom from all dictatorships. The white dove stands on the Tunisian flag, where the Arab Spring began. Seeking change and peace, its spirit will travel to reach the entire Arab world.

“Family Tree” - This painting of the tree symbolizes my family. It expresses my deep feel-ing for them. The leaves on the ground represent members of my family who have died, especially my father and two brothers. The leaves on the tree, scattered far from each other, represent the family members scattered by war, living as refugees in several different coun-tries and unable to visit each other. The dove represents my heart, which yearns to embrace all my family together in one place.

“Steve McNeil, Homeless Friend of Palestinians” - Steve, a well-known homeless man in Jamaica Plains, attends every peace and human rights demonstration on the East Coast on behalf of the Palestinian people.

“A Joy for All Who See” - The Great Mosque of Samarra, Iraq. Medieval Islamic writers believed that the name “Samarra” is derived from the Arabic phrase “Sarr man re’a”, which translates to “A joy for all who see.”

“Waiting” - My 77 year old mother, Thuraya Ahmed Hassan, who fled Haifa to Iraq in 1948 is now a refugee for the second time. She waits here in the Al Tanf Camp in no-man’s-land between Iraq and Syria. She has six daughters and four sons. They came from different countries to try to visit her in Syria. But she was forbidden to enter Syria to see them. They tried to get permission to come to her. Here she sits, waiting expectantly from morning until night for a sight of her children. Inside her tent, hot tea sits ready for them. Waiting.Thaer Abdallah

Thaer Abdallah is a painter and human rights activist born in Baghdad, Iraq in 1970. He is one of thirteen children born to his Palestinian parents who were originally from Haifa, located on Israel’s Mediterranean coastline. They fled to Iraq in 1948 when fighting broke out over establishment of the modern state of Israel on land that, at the time, was part of the British mandated territory of Pales-tine. Despite living in Iraq for over 60 years, Palestinians remained an ethnic minority without right of citizenship.

Since 2003, Palestinians have been subjected to kidnapping, torture, imprisonment and assassinations by various Iraqi militias. Thaer led a number of threatened Palestinian families out of Iraq and lived with them in a Syrian refugee camp. He created many paintings in the camp on black velvet material because canvas was not available.

In 2007, the Syrian secret police imprisoned, tortured and deported Thaer back to Iraq because of his work on behalf of refugees and his relationship with American peace activists. Again he fled Iraq, af-ter a circuitous route through Turkey and Greece, he arrived in the United States in 2008. Currently he lives in the Boston area and maintains a studio in Dorchester. He has achieved his United States citizenship and is married to an American peace activist.

After arriving in Boston he began formal painting studies at the Eliot School of Fine and Applied Arts, Jamaica Plain and the Cambridge Center for Adult Education, Cambridge, Massachusetts. His work has been exhibited in the greater Boston area. Many of his works tell a very personal story of family history, loneliness, loss, but most of all, of hope for the future.

Images from Melody and Witness Series, by Ahmed AbdallahPhotography by Daylynn Richards

Top to Bottom: Freedom; Family Tree; Steve McNeil, Homeless Friend of Palestinians; A Joy For All Who See; Waiting; by Thaer Abdallah

BAN ALMAHFODH-GRAIME JOCELYN AJAMI

I am interested in the use of traditional clothing styles to expressparticular landmarks in a woman’s life. Clothing is also a container ofmemory, and is often brought by immigrants to their new home.Traditional clothing becomes an expression of heritage that gainsemphasis against the background of United States society.

This particular painting shows a traditional garment given to me by aPalestinian friend when we were in school together at Brandeis. She knew it symbolized the bond we shared of friendship born in a place far from our original homes. This painting is also a reaction to Amy MacDonald’s works, which show women dressed in burkas/traditional and restricted clothing. My painting shows a jalabiya that would be worn to celebrations, that could be in the public or with family at home. Both the burqa/abbaya and the dressy jalabiya are traditional, but one is conservative and the other celebratory. I wanted to show that all things are part of Arabic society – abbayas and other forms clothing too. Tamziq can refer to the fabric of family or of a society, and many things are woven into it.Ban Almahfodh-Graime

The American flag is a symbol of patriotism and pro-test. To my parents, whose origins were in Lebanon and Syria, the United States flag represented freedom, justice, innovation and generosity. In my voyage as an American citizen I have experienced these qualities, but I have also seen our democracy torn apart and wounded by voices of injustice and denial. The Iraq War and the tragedy we imposed on an entire people, is one example. Our greed and injustice towards fellow citizens is another. While claiming to be a benevolent force, we deny the institutional violations of human rights around the world, as we do in Palestine. It is in defense of patriotism that I wish our country to heal itself from denial and injustice. There is hope for rebirth. My drawings are an expression of this wish. Jocelyn Ajami

Jocelyn Ajami is a painter, filmmaker, writer, lecturer, public speaker and political activist. She was born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela of Lebanese and Syrian heritage, but educated in the USA and Italy. She holds a MA in Painting and Art History from Villa Schifanoia, Florence, Italy. In addition, she earned a BA in French and a BFA in Studio Art from Manhattanville College, Purchase, New York. Ajami is currently a United States citizen living and working in Boston and Chicago.

Ban Almahfodh-Graime received a BA from the University of Basra, in Eng-lish literature and translation, and an MA in Applied Linguistics in 2000. She then worked as project manager for education and child protection programs at Save the Children in the Middle East (mainly Iraq). In 2005, she came to the United States as a Fulbright fellow to attend the International Development program at the Heller School, Brandeis University, and has lived in Boston since. She is formally trained to an undergraduate level in oil painting and acrylics. She grew up partly in Scotland and Wales, before returning to her birth place of Basra, Iraq, and then moving from there to reside in the United States.

Top to Bottom:What We Wore At Home: Formal Afternoon Dress ( Jalabiya) by Ban Almahfodh-Graime, Jalabiya detail.

Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil, by Jocelyn Ajami

ZAINABALI AL MEER ELI ALPEROWICZ

Keep/Watch Hope 2012

“The painting talks about the energy of the youth who have moved forward to rise with the future, and build life in the way that they dreamt it. It is also about those who seem to be watching from a hidden place, watching reality being changed by their children.”

Blending 2006 “This painting talks about the spiritual connection of the soul with the sky. This is represented by the bright colors that result from the blending together of surrounding colors.”

Despite Difference 2011

“This painting talks about the vast differences in people's thinking: but this difference does not spoil things between people. The culture of conversation joins thoughts together firmly, and pushes the path of humanity towards completion.”

Conversation/Dialogue 2011

“The painting describes a dialogue between the sky and the earth, which is shown through the interaction of colors between the earth and sky. The sky appears to be sending something to the earth. So much of the destruction that happens on earth is due to the ignorance of humanity. For this reason the shapes, colors and lines of the painting are in a state of flux and movement.”

Struggle 2011

“This painting examines the struggle within humanity between peoples; between brothers. The competition between selfish, individual priorities feeds the fire of this escalating struggle.”Zainabali Al Meer

I have been painting in some form from the age of 9, mostly self-taught. I paint or do art almost daily. I have studied with other artists and many teachers, and wandered through some of the best museums in the world. My main influences are the Modernist and Post-Modernist painters. “Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.” (Leo Niklaevich Tolstoy)

My father was an underground fighter in the Jewish underground resisting the German occupiers of Lithuania (USSR) during WWII. After his death two years ago, I began reflecting on how his life was diminished by the effects of war. He lost all of his immediate family and lived in the forest for four years. I resent all powers that control other people by the power of the gun. I am in support of and sympathize with the average person caught in war, the so-called “collateral damage.”Eli Alperowicz

Born in 1948 in Vilnius, Lithuania, to a Russian Orthodox mother and a Jewish father, Alperowicz moved to Israel as a boy. He served in the military alongside his father and brother. He later moved to Canada and then the United States in his twenties. He currently lives and works in Boston, Massachusetts.

Zainabali Al Meer is an MFA candidate at the University of Basra, Iraq. Her current research focuses on the influence of political ideology on contemporary Iraqi visual arts. As a member of the Iraqi Artists Association, she has exhibited with the Basra University Fine Arts faculty and shown at the Al-Mirbad Festival with other national artists. This is her first exhibition in the United States. Currently she lives and works in Basra, Iraq.

Clockwise from top: Run...Run...; Under The Boot; Ingenious War Machine by Eli Alperowicz; Eli in his studio

Top to Bottom: Blending; Despite Difference; Keep/Watch Hope; Conversation/Dialogue; Struggle by Zainabali AL Meer

WAFAA AL SHIMRTY NOUR ABDULKAREEM AL ZAMIL

The painting symbolizes the place of woman in society. Despite the injustices done to her by many, she

remains deeply symbolic as a giver of life.

Nour Abdulkareem Al Zamil

Nour works in response to media images of women. Here she responds to a magazine image, painting from memory and creating her own interpretation.

Nour received a Bachelors Degree in Visual Arts from the College of Fine Arts, Basra University. She has exhibited at galleries in Iraq. This is her first exhibition in the United States. Currently she lives and works in Basra, Iraq.

Wafaa is an Iraqi-born calligrapher with more than 25 years experience perfecting the cherished and historically rich art form of Arabic calligraphy. His work has been shown in many international competitions in Turkey, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and other places. He was the first Arabic artist to establish Arabic calligraphy and Islamic ornaments classes in New England; among the many places he has taught is a refugee camp in Saudi Arabia. He currently teaches at the Center for Arabic Culture in Somerville.

The calligraphy below was written while Hajj Wafaa was in a refugee camp. The ink is coffee. The pen above is one he made in the camp from a Bic pen and a soda can. He brought these things with him when he came to the United States.

Practicing calligraphy brings me peace. Even now, when I have a big decision, or something is bothering me, I need to write. When I was in the refugee camp I practiced calligraphy to survive. It makes me happy. In the camps we had not pens, ink or paper. We made a pen out of the top of a soda can. For ink, we used coffee, or battery acid.

Wafaa Al Shimrty

Clockwise: Kufa Dimension, Pen made in Saudi refugee camp; calligraphy made in refugee camp with coffee ink; by Wafaa Al Shimrty Clockwise: The Symbol; The Symbol, detail by Nour Abdulkareem Al Zamil

THAMER DAWOOD JIM LOMMASSON

Top to Bottom: City Story; Hammurabi; No place is home by Thamier Dawood

Thamer Dawood Sudani was born in 1966 in Baghdad, Iraq. Currently he lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland. His formal art education began at the Fine Arts Institute, Baghdad where he earned a diploma in 1986. In 2000, he earned his BFA in painting from the Collage of Fine Arts, Baghdad. He has been exhibiting his work since 1983 in countries around the world. Beside numerous exhibitions in Iraq, he has been exhibited in galleries and museums in Jordan, Syria, Abu Dubai, Kuwait and Japan, as well as, since 2007, the United States.

The results were a revealing and honest expression of deep sorrow, relief, and a new sense of freedom. The finished writings were beautifully transcendent. The photo/writings are artifacts in themselves. They are history, and they create a dialog between the Iraqi refugee and the viewer. This way of telling the story took on a life of it’s own. I am grateful for the trust, honesty and creativity of the Iraqi people.Jim Lommasson

Jim Lommasson is an American freelance photographer and writer living in Portland, Oregon. Over the years, his commercial work has provided funding for his passion: personal photographic projects. He received the Dorothea Lange-Paul Taylor Prize from the Center for Documentary Studies, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina for his first book of photographs, published in 2005, “Shadow Boxers: Sweat, Sacrifice & The Will To Survive In American Boxing Gyms”. Oregon State University Press published his second book, “Oaks Park Pentimento: Portland’s Lost and Found Carousel” in 2009. He is the recipient of several grants for his project “Exit Wounds: Soldiers’ Stories - Life After Iraq and Afghanistan”, an examination begun in 2007 of the effects of war on American soldiers returning home from the Middle East. These photographs and oral histories of veterans led to his current project of telling the story of some 1500 Iraqi refugees who now call Portland their home.

“What We Carried: Fragments From the Cradle of Civilization” tells the story of what was brought to America by Iraqi refugees as important personal items, mementos and keepsakes of their homeland. Lommasson photographs the precious items, then asks participants to write on the object’s photograph to express and document the object’s significance. Thus, this process results in an exceptionally collaborative storytelling project. Originallly working with refugees in Portland, Lommasson recently repeated the process with Iraqi refugees in the Boston area.

Dawood’s paintings include mysterious symbols on colorful backgrounds, many marks recalling ancient cuneiform writing, a system of writing in use for more than twenty-two centuries. Considered the earliest known writing system, cuneiform consists of wedge-shape forms pressed into clay tablets by a blunt reed stylus. It began as an inventive means of accounting in ancient Sumer, the area between the Euphrates and Tigris River, later known as Mesopotamia, and now known as the southern most part of modern-day Iraq. Dawood’s father and grandfather were both born in this area providing him with a direct connection to ancient Sumerian culture that fuels his imagination and provides a rich pictorial texture to his paintings.

Top to Bottom: What We Carried: Fragments From the Cradle of Civilization, Oregon Series by Jim Lommasson

ANNE LOYER AMY BAXTER MACDONALD

This installation is a response to a resonant moment in the epic story, Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh was a Sumerian king in 2500 BC. Sumer was an ancient civilization in what is now southern Iraq; they invented the wheel, writing, arithmetic, and the first city states. Gilgamesh was often depicted in relief sculpture with stylized graphics. I became interested in juxtaposing two highly stylized ways of representing the human figure: one ancient Greek, the other Sumerian. I played with these styles in creating large-scale versions of two warriors: Achilles and Gilgamesh; similar subject matter, different cultural roots. One story in the epic describes Gilgamesh and his best friend Enkidu going off on an escapade in the forest to steal lumber. First they must kill Humbaba, the monster charged by the gods with protecting the sacred cedar trees. Gilgamesh and Enkidu eventually find and overpower Humbaba. At the moment when they are about to kill him, Humbaba begs for mercy. Gilgamesh hesitates and considers sparing him, but Enkidu demands that Gilgamesh finish the job. Gilgamesh capitulates and kills Humbaba. Enkidu and Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh and Achilles, the Middle East and the West, Iraq and the United States – both sides are partners in the fight. I am interested in this moment of potential mercy and potential murder that Humbaba witnesses, and that the audience of this epic witnesses. How are we all destroyed in that moment? How are we all changed by witnessing the violence in Iraq?Anne Loyer

Anne Loyer is a visual artist who works in traditional and digital media. Her work has found its way into film, theater, the web, and galleries. She is interested in making work that creates a space for thinking about contemporary issues from multiple viewpoints. Loyer has been involved in several projects that generate art in communities not traditionally involved in the arts (Residents at Harvard Medical School, Veterans of the Iraq war, Tewksbury Hospital, Hale House Elder Residence), and much of her work has grown out of these experiences. In 2009, she developed the Odysseus Project, an ongoing dialogue between veterans, artists and artist-veterans. Currently an artist in residence at the Joiner Center for the Study of War and Social Consequences, University of Massachusetts, Boston, Anne helped envision and organize the Tamziq Project: a local and international dialogue between artists from the US and the Middle East. Her work has been supported by grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Jane’s Trust, and a fellowship at the National Academy of Design. Anne Loyer’s first short film “Hannah’s Ride” won the “Indie Soul” Special Recognition award at the Boston International Film Festival.

The burqa paintings began as an extension of the self-portraits I had been working on in 2009. I was making life-sized paintings while wearing high heels and tight-waisted cocktail dresses, curious to see how my physical discomfort affected both my process and the resulting paintings. When sciatica got the best of me, I opted for a rejection of glamour and purchased an Afghanistani burqa online. Now I would have freedom of movement but restricted vision. The frustration I felt while trying to see gave way to some energetic brushwork I liked, but I soon abandoned the veil. As an artist who relies on her vision to paint from life, it angered me to learn that women are forced to wear these every time they leave their homes. Religious laws vary from one part of the country to another, but under the harshest laws they are punished if they fail to cover them-selves properly. It is important to note that this problem is not unique to Islamic countries and is not meant as a critique of their culture. Orthodox Jews and Christians have their own mandates on modest dress and make lives for nonconformists unbearable. These began as paintings like any others, and they raised questions as I painted them. I do not have answers to these questions, I just have more questions. Each painting in the series has a second painting on its flip side, inspired by accounts of women’s lives behind the veil, the photographs of Stephanie Sinclair, and images found online. I am concerned for the welfare of women and political prisoners trapped there, and hope these paintings remind us that there are innocent people being tortured in prisons in parts of Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Girls are often forced into marriage from age nine on wards. Some women in Afghanistan light themselves on fire as a last-resort means of protest, hoping to either die or make themselves unattractive to their husbands. Women can still be stoned to death for failing to comply with harsh rules they have no part in creating. Amy MacDonald

Amy Baxter MacDonald is a painter, animator and teacher born in Haver-hill, Massachusetts in 1965, but she grew up in Clinton, New York, where her father was a coach at Hamilton College. She earned her BA degree in 1987 from Hamilton College and her MFA in 2009 from Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston. Currently she lives and works in the Fort Point area of Boston. She also teaches at the New England Institute of Art, Brookline, Massachusetts in the Media Arts & Animation Department. Her work has been exhibited in Massachusetts and New York. In addition, her work is in numerous private and public collections.

MacDonald says her paintings are her way of “commemorating subjects” she finds intriguing. The subject “may be a friend, a paid model, a plush chair, or a disturbing media image...documentary or pop images that strike me visu-ally or viscerally”. Media images and experimentation with physical restric-tion while painting have led MacDonald to her “Seen/Unseen (The Burqa Paintings).” She paints in oil on both sides of a wood substrate. One side depicts self-portraits in burqas or three women in burqas, and the reverse side contains an image of the artist while painting in a mask or depictions prompted by media portrayals of women in particular areas of the Middle East.

Top to Bottom: Self-portrait: Painting in a Burqa I, Verso: “Self-Portrait: Painting in a Mask; Self-Portrait: Painting in a Burqa II, Verso: Afghan Self-Immolation Victim; Three Women in Burqas, Verso: Preparing the Girl for Her Stoning; by Amy MacDonald

Gilgamesh, Achilles, Humbaba - detail, L to R: Achilles, Humbaba, Gilgamesh, by Anne Loyer

RANIA MATAR JAMES O’NEILL

James O’Neill is an artist specializing in monoprinting and drawing. He graduated in 1994 with a BFA from the University of Hartford, West Hartford, Connecticut. His art practice took a hiatus while he was serving in the United States Army, 814th Engineer Company, from 2000 though 2004. After serving in Iraq, he reclaimed his art career. In 2011 he earned his MFA from Tufts University at The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. James’s large scale-prints reveal the terror and nightmare of his direct experience as a soldier in combat. Nasiriyah, Iraq was one of the first major battles of the 2003 Iraq War.

In February of 2003, I was a soldier in the U.S. Army, deployed to Kuwait in preparation for the invasion of Iraq. After six weeks of waiting in the desert we finally received our orders to assault and the war began. As we went into the breech lanes that cut through the minefields to make our way into Iraq, the brutal reality of what was about to happen sunk in. At that moment I vowed that if I made it home alive I would rededicate my life to making art. While I was deployed, all I could think of was being home. What I did not know then was that Iraq would come home with me.

James O’Neill

My aim is to portray the girl, when allowed to pose herself as she wishes in front of the camera. I try to capture alternatively the angst, the self-confidence or lack thereof, the body language, the sense of selfhood and the developing sense of sexuality and womanhood that girls this age experience...This work was inspired from my previous project “A Girl and Her Room”...I felt I wanted to get closer and focus on the girl herself and not on the space. I was also inspired simultaneously by my thirteen year old daughter who is transforming before my eyes, and who alternates between being the little girl I know, and a young woman I don’t know yet. The focus is now on the younger teen, her expressions, her gestures and her body language instead of the space she occupies. I am photographing girls in the US where I live and in Lebanon where I am originally from. These are not meant to be a comparison, on the contrary...Regardless of place, background and religion, girls that age everywhere seem united by similar feelings, aspirations and at-titudes. I hope to photograph these girls through their adolescence. Rania Matar on “L’Enfant-Femme.”

A Girl in Her Room is about ... teenage girls and young women at a transitional time of their lives, alone in the privacy of their own personal space and surroundings: their bedroom, a womb within the outside world. As a mother of a teenage daughter I watch her passage from girlhood into adulthood, fascinated with the transformation taking place, the adult personality shaping up and a self- consciousness now replacing the carefree world she had known and lived in so far...I was discovering a person on the cusp of becoming an adult, but desperately holding onto the child she barely outgrew, a person on the edge between two worlds, trying to come to terms with this transitional time in her life and adjust to the person she is turning into...I initially started this work focusing on teenage girls in the United States and eventually expanded the project to include girls for the two worlds I am most familiar with, the two worlds I experienced myself as a teen and a young twenty year old: the United States and the Middle East. This is how this project became very personal to me. I became fascinated with the similar issues girls at that age face, regardless of culture, religion, and background, as they learn to deal with all the pressures that arise as they become consciously aware of the surrounding world where ever this may be. Rania Matar on “A Girl and Her Room.”

Rania Matar is an photographer, teacher and lecturer born and raised in Lebanon. She trained as an architect at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon and then at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. She worked as an architect from 1987 to 2000. She then studied photography at the New England School of Photography, Boston and the Maine Photographic Workshops, Rockport, Maine. Currently she teaches documentary photography at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. In addition, she teaches photography to teenage girls in Lebanon’s refugee camps during the summer. In 2002 she began a project of photographing Palestinian refugees in Lebanon to docu-ment the everyday activity and surroundings of women and girls living in the aftermath of civil war. Her collection of photographs from this project were published in 2009 in a book entitled “Ordinary Lives”. Her current work focuses primarily on young girls in Lebanon and the United States as they develop and mature.

Top to Bottom: L’Enfant-Femme: Molly 12, Brookline MA 2011, Samira 12, Bourj El Barajneh Refugee Camp, Beirut 2011; A Girl and Her Room: Siena, Brookline, MA 2009, Nohad, Bourj al Barajneh Pal-

estinian Refugee Camp, Beirut, Lebanon 2010; Ordinary Lives: Juggling, Aita El Chaab Lebanon 2006; by Rania Matar

Left to Right: Outside of Nasiriyah; Bodybag, by James O’Neill

ROBIN SHORES MICHAEL TRAUB

Robin Shores is an MFA graduate of the University of Buffalo. He has taught at Boston University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. As a Peace Corps volunteer Robin worked in Africa and Bangladesh. He also traveled to India as a Fulbright Scholar. He served in the United States Navy in the Gulf of Tonkin, Vietnam in 1968. His work has received numerous awards: Fulbright Grant; Pollock/Krasner Grant; Gottlieb Foundation Grant; Roswell Artist-in-Residence Grant.

Michael was born in 1965, in Israel. His mother was American. His father was born in Latvia, but grew up in South Africa, lived in England and America, then settled in Israel. Michael grew up in Israel, and came to the United States in 2006.

Michael’s credits include two full-length documentaries: “Hinneni,” which premiered at the Boston Jewish Film Festival and “Chinese Farm” for Israeli television. He has worked on projects at WGBH and for Israel’s National Geographic Channel. He recently directed and edited the documentary, “The Dewey Stone Connection: The Untold Story.”

What I always find most interesting about my projects is hearing the unique personal experience of individuals, and then finding its opposite: the common threads that connect people in general, and in this case, artists in general. Being displaced and finding your place is an important experience in one’s personal development. The idea of Tamziq, of being torn from one’s origins, of being an outsider, is something I relate to, whether it’s on a national level or a personal one. It’s interesting to see this idea played out in the lives of people coming from different cultural backgrounds and different personal experiences. It’s a universal theme that transcends culture, but manifests differently in various cultures, environments and personalities. This idea is also in the Odysseus Project’s name - the theme of a person, Odysseus, trying to find one’s home.

On an existential level, everyone is born in a foreign land and has to find their place, or create it. The refugees story is a concrete manifestation of this.Michael Traub

The figure in “She Thought Was the Pharaoh” represents a young female guard convicted of abusing inmates at Abu Ghraib prison, Iraq. She in turn represents the abuse of American political and military power, both internally and externally.

American society was torn by these and other abuses, while at the same time other young men and women were dying fighting in Iraq, in itself a cause for the tearing of the fabric of America.

Robin Shores

Top to Bottom: Queen Mary Crossing the Desert, Cross-ing the Desert, Death Ship Series Abu Ghraib, Death Ship Series 2; She Thought She Was the Pharaoh; by Robin Shores

Stills, Tamziq Artist Interviews by Michael Traub T to B: Wafaa Al Shimrty, Thaer Abdallah, Amy MacDonald, Robin Shores

SEEING THROUGH WALLS Thaer Abdallah, Adnane Benali, Phyllis Bluhm, Beverly Shalom,

Vivienne Shalom and Richard Youngstrom

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been so dire and long standing that it has often seemed hopeless. As we have wit-nessed the pain and suffering in this region, we have wondered if there is anything we could do to ex-press our empathy with both sides and to inspire a dialogue about Israeli-Palestinian peace in our communities. Art is a universal language, a powerful means to express a wish, a hope, a longing. It is a means to communicate when words can’t say enough, when there is an impasse. We believe that the creation of a visual image of peace can have a deep impact on many levels and can open people’s hearts and minds in a unique way.Adnane Benali

Seeing Through Walls is a collaborative effort by six artists from different backgrounds and political opinions deeply concerned about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the Middle East. It depicts two women, representing their respective communities, “painting” a future of peace and justice for all children and all people. They are creating this vision for a future where there are no more walls, both figuratively and in reality, that divide the two peoples. The painting in this exhibit is a prototype for a mosaic mural that is presently being produced. Read more at www.seeingthroughwalls.org

PROJECT PARTNERS

William Joiner Center for the Study of War and Social Consequences The center promotes research, curriculum development, public events, and educational, cultural, and humanitarian exchanges that foster greater understanding and innovative means of addressing the consequences of war. Responding to wars in the 21st century, the Joiner Center has begun to focus on the consequences of the Global War on Terrorism, particularly as manifested in the conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The center seeks to serve veterans and all victims of war and to create a public space where the issues of war and their human, social, political, and environmental consequences can be openly discussed, debated, and analyzed.The center seeks to promote the advancement of knowledge and critical thought in these areas and the creation of fresh and enduring solutions.

The William Joiner Center is named after William (Bill) Joiner, an African American veteran who served as the university’s first director of Veterans Affairs until his untimely death in 1981 from liver cancer associated with his exposure to Agent Orange while serving in the military. Staffed by veterans and others affected by wars from Vietnam through Iraq, the center is located at the University of Massachusetts Boston at Harbor Point on the 10th floor of the Joseph P. Healey Library.

For more information, visit www.umb.edu/joinercenter

A note from the Organizers:“At the beginning, Anne (Loyer) and I spent several months talking about and discussing a need to address some is-sues relating to the Middle East (where I am from), and its perception in the United States. We knew that we wanted to express that artistically. We began to think of ways we could try to include other members of the American community, and members of the Middle Eastern Diaspora here in Boston. In this way, what we later called “Tamziq” grew slowly but surely: the pieces of fabric were stitched together. We have been fortunate to work with many artists, writers and aca-demics on the Tamziq path, to whom this project is really owed in its collective. I would especially like to thank the two artists from Basra, Nour and Zainab, who entrusted us with their work and creativity. Their creativity is not only close to their heart, but close to ours, closing the miles between us all. Tamziq has been that path, and I hope it will continue to be a bridge in this way.” - Ban Almahfodh-Graime

“I would like to thank Ban (Almahfodh-Graime) for the time and energy she took with me on this journey. I would also like to thank everyone at the Joiner Center for their support of my ideas, and the opportunity to grow this project into a reality. While I am reminded daily of how little I know, this opportunity to create peer-to-peer connections between artists both locally and internationally has allowed me to grow immensely as a person and as an artist, and I hope this project is the beginning of many more such connections between artists. I believe that open and honest sharing and listening among peers is vital to any real peace. It has been a fantastic experience to get to know all the amazing artists in this exhibit, and I am grateful for the stories and work they shared with me. I would also like to thank Joanne Hardy for the time and care she put into arranging this show, and her insights into the work of each artist.” - Anne Loyer

The Odysseus Project The Odysseus Project seeks to promote open dialogue between artists, veterans, students, refugees, immigrants and members of the Boston community, using art as a means to understand the connections between communities here and conflicts overseas. Founded in 2009 by artist Anne Loyer, the project encourages art as a means of communication between those who have experienced conflict first hand, and those who have not, and it seeks to create an open and safe environment for opinion, creativity, and thought focusing on the effects of war.

The Odysseus Project’s current focus is “Tamziq: Scattered and Connected” - a project in four parts: the Artist Network, Art Exhibition, Theater, and Education. We are currently working with the Fort Point Theater Channel and the Joiner Center to produce a workshop production of “The Land,” a play being co-written by Iraqi playwright Amir Al Azraki and American playwright Jessica Litwak, to be performed in Boston May 16-18, 2013.

For more information, please visit www.odysseusproject.org

Seeing Through Walls mural design painting, by Thaer Abdallah, Adnane Benali, Phyllis Bluhm, Beverly Shalom, Vivienne Shalom and Richard Youngstrom

Ahmed Abdallah

Witness, A Story Without A Narrator2008Sharpie on paper 18 x 12 inches

Thaer Abdallah

Family Tree2008Oil on canvas 11.5 x 15 inches

Steve McNeil, Homeless Friend of Palestinians2009Oil on canvas 18 x 24 inches

A Joy For All Who See2009Oil on velvet 16 x 12 inches

Waiting2010Oil on canvas 24 x 18 inches

Freedom2011Oil on canvas 28 x 22 inches

Jocelyn Ajami

See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil2010Colored pencil on paper 16 x 7 inches

Wounded2010Colored pencil on paper 12.5 x 12.5 inches

Rebirth?2010Colored pencil on paper 12.5 x 12.5 inches

Ban AlMahfodh-Graime

What We Wore At Home: Formal Afternoon Dress ( Jalabiya)2013Acrylic, oil pastel on wood 48 x 24 inches

Zainabal Al Meer

Keep/Watch, Hope (Tarakab Alamal)2012Oil on canvas32 x 16, 39 x 20 inches

Struggle (Alsiraa)2011Oil on canvas 39 x 31.5 inches

Blending (Tanagem)2006Oil on canvas 20 x 16 inches

Conversation/Dialogue (Hiwaar)2011Oil on canvas 31.5 x 24 inches

Eli Alperowicz

Ingenious War Machine2012Mixed media on wood 12 x 12 inches

Run...Run...2012Mixed media on wood 12 x 12 inches

Under the Boot2012Mixed media on wood 12 x 12 inches

Wafaa Al-Shimrty

Kufa Dimension2013Acrylic paint 47 x 47 inches

The Envy Dimension2013Mixed Media 24 x 48 inches

Noor Abdulkareem Al Zamil

The Symbol (Alramez)2012Oil on canvas 32 x 24 inches

Thamer Dawood

History2009Mixed media on canvas 36 x 36 inches

City Story2009Mixed media on canvas 36 x 36 inches

Hammurabi2009Mixed media on canvas 36 x 36 inches

Blue Dream2011Mixed media on canvas 13 x 13 inches

Historical Signs2012Mixed media on canvas 13 x 13 inches

No Place Is Home2012Mixed media on canvas 13 x 13 inches

Sommer 1 (Sumer, Iraq)2012Mixed media on canvas 36 x 12 inches

Sommer 2 (Sumer, Iraq)2012Mixed media on canvas 36 x 12 inches

Sommer 3 (Sumer, Iraq)2012Mixed Media on canvas 36 x 12 inches

Jim Lommasson

What We Carried: Fragments From The Cradle of Civilization2011 (Portland, Oregon) 2013 (Lynn and Boston, Massachusetts) Archival pigment prints, pencil, ink pen, marker, acrylic paint, tape 13 x 19 inches

Anne Loyer

Achilles, Gilgamesh and Humbaba2012Paper, paper mache, plaster 84 x 144 x 8 inches

Amy MacDonald

Self-Portrait: Painting in a Burqa I Verso: Self-Portrait: Painting in a Mask2010Oil, mixed media on wood 60 x 48 inches

Self-Portrait: Painting in a Burqa IIVerso: Afghanistani Self-Immolation Victim2010Oil, mixed media on wood 60 x 48 inches

Three Women in BurqasVerso: Preparing the Girl for Her Stoning2010Oil, mixed media on wood 60 x 48 inches

List of Works on Exhibit List of Works on Exhibit

List of Works on Exhibit List of Works on Exhibit

Rania Matar

Samira 12, Bourj El Barajneh Refugee Camp, Beirut2011Archival pigment print 36 x 28.5 inches

Molly 12, Brookline Massachusetts2011Archival pigment print 36 x 28.5 inches

(NOTE: The above 2 photographs are from the series: “ENFANT-FEMME”)

Nohad, Bourj El Barajneh Refugee Camp, Beirut2010Archival pigment print 28 x 42 inches

Seina, Brookline Massachusetts2009Archival pigment print 28 x 42 inches

Alia, Beirut Lebanon2010Archival pigment print 28 x 42 inches

(NOTE: The above 3 photographs are from the series: “A GIRL AND HER ROOM”)

Juggling, Aita El Chaab Lebanon2006Archival pigment print 24 x 36 inches

Defiant, Beirut Lebanon2006Archival pigment print 24 x 36 inches

Hanging Laundry, Aita El Chaab Lebanon2006Archival pigment print 24 x 36 inches

Newspapers, Beirut Lebanon2007Archival pigment print 24 x 36 inches

Sister, Beirut Lebanon2007Archival pigment print 24 X 36 inches

Barbie Girl, Beirut Lebanon2006Archival pigment print 22 x 33 inches

(NOTE: The above 6 photographs are from the series: “ORDINARY LIVES”)

James O’Neill

Outside of Nasiriyah2008 Monotype20 x 40 inches

Robin Shores

She Thought She Was The Pharaoh2006Wood, mixed media 24 x 24 x 10 inches

Queen Mary Crossing The Desert2010Wood, mixed media 10 x 30 x 4 inches

Crossing The Desert2010Wood, mixed media 10 x 30 x 4 inches

Untitled2013Wood, mixed media 24 x 101 x 10 inches

Michael TraubInterviews with Artists2013DVD, Monitor 27-minute loop

Thaer Abdallah, Adnane Benali, Phyllis Bluhm, Beverly Shalom, Vivienne Shalom, Richard Youngstrom

Seeing Through Walls (Prototype Painting for a Mosaic Mural) 2012Acrylic on canvas20 x 30 inches