THE PHOTOGRAPHERS Rana Al-Auby Ahmed Dhiya Hamed Hasan Salman Limea Hamza Jassim Mohammad Rana Mohammad Alaa Kamel and her husband Salam Omar Usama Mustafa Ahmed Yaseen The photographs on these walls were taken from only ten rolls of film, all made this past spring with disposable cameras. The photographers themselves are civilians coming from a variety of walks of life, none having to do with taking pictures: Limea Hamza, for example, is a student in her third year at the English Department of the University of Baghdad, Mustafa Ahmed Yaseen is a cigarette factory worker, Ahmed Dhiya is a dentist, and Hamed Hasan Salam lives in the garbage dump where he photographed his family members. There is also Alaa Kamel, who describes herself as “an Iraqi women of 29 years old, working as an interpreter, living in Baghdad, very much upset about what is happening in Palestine and Iraq, never feel afraid of being a translator.… You sent me greetings from America but your country wouldn't like to have me like a visitor there.” Jassim Mohammad is “31 years old with parents and three brothers and sisters. I am looking for a wife. I am an engineer in medical instruments but now drive journalists between Jordan and Iraq. I wish the Americans [at home] could see what they do here in Iraq…. The situation in Iraq now is very very bad because we are now like Palestine and Israel.…" He, like many others, is also skeptical of recent changes. " I do not believe this new government are really Iraqis. Mr. Bush is a liar and his troops make trouble and conquer.” But he also says, “I am sure the American people they are a good people.” The captions are excerpted from texts written by the photographers themselves, slightly edited for the purpose of this exhibition. In retrospect, one wonders how photographs by Vietnamese civilians at the time of the war in their country might have enlightened outsiders, or by Jews in concentration camps, or by any group not allowed to represent themselves on the international stage. It has been a year in Iraq during which many of the most important photographs have been made by non-professionals, such as those by US soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison. These Iraqi civilian photographers, most with no more than one roll of film, also have something to add.