English

Interview

Nedim Kufi on Memory, Forgetting and Naivete

Nedim Kufi (b.1962, Baghdad) is an artist, printmaker and graphic designer based in Utrecht, The Netherlands. His work is often based on old and collected photographs and deals with the themes of loss, memory and exile. He speaks to RUYA about his influences and upcoming projects, and his mixed feelings towards the past in his…

Interview

Painter Saddam al Jumaily on strange visions and growing up in Basra

Saddam al Jumaily was born in 1974, on the outskirts of Basra. He graduated from the College of Fine Arts, Basra University in 2000, after which he stayed on as a lecturer. He was arts editor of Iraq’s Manara magazine, and has worked as a graphic designer. Today, he lives in Jordan and has had…

Interview

From Berlin to Baghdad: Furat al Jamil

Furat al Jamil (b. 1965, Mainz, Germany; lives and works in Baghdad, Iraq) is a filmmaker, selected to show one of her rare sculptures at the Pavilion of Iraq. A suspended honeycomb frame drips its contents into a broken antique pot, in order to convey sweet melancholy, a sadness that she feels about her homeland…

Interview

A time for change: Bassim al Shaker

One of the youngest artists in the Pavilion of Iraq at the 55th Venice Biennale, Bassim Al-Shaker (b. 1986, Baghdad, Iraq) is stylistically one of its most traditional, making oil paintings that would very much impress his teachers at the local academy. Eschewing any sign of avant-gardism he paints scenes of the southern marshlands, suggesting a lifestyle…