Exhibit: UCSB Library
Panel: online
The Shadow and Light project compiled by Beau Beausoleil, a poet and activist in the Bay Area, memorializes Iraqi academics assassinated between 2003-2013. This timeframe roughly parallels the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq. To create the project, participants from all over the world selected the name of an assassinated Iraqi academic to memorialize with a photograph and a personal narrative. Thus far, 45 individuals have been commemorated from a list of 324 assassinated Iraqi academics.
For the virtual exhibition of Shadow and Light at UC Santa Barbara, thirteen pieces were selected to illuminate the spectrum of educators, scholars and artists lost to the violence prompted by the U.S. led invasion, occupation and resulting sectarian violence in Iraq. During their lifetimes, the men and women memorialized in this exhibit enriched diverse fields of knowledge —from history to calligraphy to the study of bees. Each assassination represented an attack on the underlying principle of education—to share knowledge—and served as a threat to scholars throughout Iraq that they were at risk. Estimates of the total number of Iraqi academics slain runs over 700. Some of their names remain unknown.
In addition to bringing together a collection of art, this project also constitutes an archive, as both a testament to the lives of Iraqis and of international solidarity. Shadow and light inhabits these photographs, as well as stories and bits of information pieced together from news sources about each person’s life and death.
We invite you to view the exhibit currently featured by the UCSB Library, and join for a conversation on May 11 with Beau Beausoleil, the project director, in conversation with Mona Damluji and Heather Hughes, co-curators of the UCSB exhibit of Shadow and Light. The event will be moderated by Rachel Winter, doctoral student in Art History at UCSB.
Join us: ucsb.zoom.us/j/84746888141