Ruptured Domesticity: the exhibition

The exhibition reveals a series of themes that emerged from deep mapping and thematic analysis of fifteen interviews with Iraqis from across Iraq

Funded and hosted by the London School of Economics (LSE) Middle East Centre, the exhibition reveals a series of themes that emerged from deep mapping and thematic analysis of fifteen interviews with Iraqis from across Iraq.

Four different scales of refuge were revealed across the interviews:

The first encapsulates the intimate memories narrated by the interviewees and the material objects and non-material notions of refuge within war and violence they recalled.

The second captures the domestic dimension encompassing multiple ruptures to different scales and realms of inhabitation encountered across the years between 2003 and 2020.

The third unearths urban negotiations between vertical and horizontal warfare, violence and urbicide puncturing through cities, pushing and pulling their margins in and out of centres of violence.

The fourth reveals choice (or lack of it) and available options in people’s mobilities and possibilities of escape while seeking refuge, inflicting a palimpsest displacement performatively.

The exhibition of the maps alongside a public talk on the opening night featured at the LSE Middle East Centre between April and May of 2023.