New in the Nov-Dec 2015 issue of Harper’s Bazaar Art Arabia, a profile of Iraqi-Palestinian artist Sama al-Shaibi in advance of her show Collapse at Dubai’s Ayyam Galllery.
During the Nakba, a young Palestinian girl fled to Iraq. They thought the exodus was temporary; she would forever mourn the loss of their photographs. During the Iraq-Iran war the same girl—now married to an Iraqi—escaped Basra with her young children; photos and Super-8 films were the only possessions she brought. They spent the next few years in extranational limbo moving around the region, yet she was determined not to repeat her parent’s experience of waiting for the war to be over, for a return that would never happen. They decamped to the USA, long overstaying her visa before finally having their deportation order stayed in 2001. Her own daughter would grow up to become artist Sama Al Shaibi. The family never returned to Iraq.