Brandon and I have been extremely busy for the past month or so getting a new media exhibition together for the Iraqi Cultural Center in downtown DC. The exhibition,
Through Our Eyes, opened on Thursday, August 4 with nearly 200 people in attendance at the reception. This was a collaborative effort with my co-curator (and long time friend)
Jon Vidar, Executive Director of
The Tiziano Project. To give you a sense of what the exhibition is about, here is our opening panel, some pictures and a lovely video:
The real Iraq is not what you see on the nightly news. It is the gardener lovingly tending his plants, the young woman driving to school each day, and the factory owner bringing industry back to his hometown. This other Iraq used to be hidden in the shadow of sensationalist international media or worse, ignored by local newspapers—until now.
“Through Our Eyes” presents the journalistic efforts and personal accounts of Iraqis living in the Kurdish north alongside the stories of their professional multimedia journalism mentors. It is the culmination of an intensive, ten-week workshop for twelve Kurdish, Arab, and Assyrian journalism students in Erbil during August 2010. The program was developed by The Tiziano Project, which provides new media tools and training to community members in conflict, post-conflict, and developing regions. The workshop included interviewing and reporting techniques, camerawork, video editing, blogging and publishing with social media tools like Facebook and Twitter. The students completed more than 50 pieces of work including articles, interactive timelines, multimedia photo essays, and short videos, all of which are available on 360.tizianoproject.org.
New media is shifting journalism from the deeply entrenched party-backed newspapers directly into the hands of the community. With this new-found journalistic freedom, Iraqis are being empowered to produce firsthand narratives of their lives and to shape the world's perception of their culture and conditions. Local people with local stories provide a unique and wholly personal view of society and the world through the eyes of those who are living it.
Jon Vidar
The Tiziano Project
Catherine P. Foster, Ph.D.
Ancient Middle East Education and Research Institute
 |
| Cat getting interviewed |
 |
| Victoria Fine and Jon Vidar |
 |
| Gratuitous crowd shot |
 |
| There's Brandon! |
 |
| Brandon with our good friends James Chang and Kat Lam (in center) |
 |
| Because of Ramadan, we had an ifthar meal (the meal that breaks the daily fast in the evening) |
It has been immensely satisfying to work with Jon again (see
Hope and Reflection) and we are extremely happy with the results. We are also humbled and thankful that so many friends and family members supported us financially for this exhibition through our
Pledgie page. Without them, this exhibition would not have been possible and we thank you all from the bottom of our hearts! Finally I want to thank
Victoria and Brandon who worked tirelessly to prep and install the exhibition. Your dedication to this project was truly remarkable.
Several people have been asking where we will show this exhibit next (our run at the ICC ends on Sept 1). The answer right now is, "we don't know!" However, we are exploring options at the
USC Annenberg School,
Berkeley's J-School, and a few other places. My dream would be to land a spot at the
Newseum.
