Baghdad’s blast walls become colorful canvases
Posted: Monday, October 27, 2008 8:15 AM
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Baghdad, Iraq
By Carla Marcus, NBC News Producer
BAGHDAD, Iraq – Slowly over time, Baghdad has become a more colorful city.
Though most of the city remains a dusty, beige hue, the grey, concrete blast walls that shield neighborhoods and government buildings from potential suicide bombers or other intruders have been transformed into large, public canvases for the city's artists and others who may be inspired to pick up a brush.
The idea to beautify the city began about two years ago, when students at Baghdad's Academy of Fine Arts proposed painting blast walls near their campus. Their work depicted images that were typically historical – Baghdad and Basra in the 1940's for example.
Soon local municipalities and government ministries commissioned the students and other artists who were still left in Baghdad – a fair number had fled Iraq – to paint the walls.
Funding also came from the American military, the Iraqi government and relief organizations. The artists were each paid about $15 a day to paint the 12 foot high slabs of concrete.
Of course, their outdoor exposure made them vulnerable to bomb blasts and other terror strikes. But they persisted, and soon serene landscapes of mountain villages, camels in the desert, the marshlands in Southern Iraq, and portraits of ironsmiths, goldsmiths and carpet makers appeared in pockets around the city.
After the American military surge last year created a more secure environment, more painters started to join in. A long stretch of walls along the Tigris River now features icons from the Babylonian and Sumerian civilizations – eras which are a great source of pride for Iraqis given the advancements in made math, science, writing and law.
Landscape painter Mohammed Mosair is currently painting sweeping vistas of Kurdistan on a stretch of barriers on one of the city's main thoroughfares, Saddun Street. Why the lush scenery? "It means changing the psychology of Iraqis," he said.
As painter Ibrahim Mohammed Ali stood on a makeshift scaffold and replicated the lines of a small drawing he brought for guidance, he explained the murals provide a well needed means of escape for locals.
"It's a way to return to the past," he said. "They're hanging because of grey blast walls," he added, perhaps using a metaphor extracted from a nation conditioned to brutality. But Ali also hoped his murals would help promote his work as a commercial artist.
There are certain areas of Baghdad that are still too risky to attract the painters. However the notorious Airport Road is now lined with a rainbow of colored panels. Not a bad image to see upon entering or departing a city where uncertainty is the only constant.
