Detroit based artist Pat Perry recently completed a mural titled “City Of Poets” and workshops with kids from both Syrian refugee and Kurdish communities in Sulaymaniyah, a city in the Kurdish part of Iraq. This project was implemented by Samantha Robison of aptART in collaboration with UNHCR.
Since this was Pat’s first trip to the Middle East, I was curious to know what he expected leaving the United States for Iraq, what his experience was like painting in Iraq, and what he did learn leaving Iraq for the United States. Below is his answer:
Unsurprisingly, there are striking differences between being in America, one of the richest (albeit unequal) countries in the world, and abruptly landing in Iraq; a developing country with sharp intervals of instability and conflict.
What I didn’t anticipate would leave such a strong impression though, was how life and the pursuit of it is so the same; people with daily routines, driving cars from home from work, construction rental companies, ice cream stores, teenagers taking selfies, general disillusionment with elected leaders, swimming and camping by flowery rivers, regular ways we try to enjoy life and relish in it together. To stand there breathing, witnessing people who are so much more the same to you than different, is what really makes it overwhelmingly powerful to go back to the beginning, and try to come to terms with what is different; why folks that deserve the world you got, got the world that they got, scattered with joyful moments but also trauma we cannot really imagine carrying.
It was a sobering reminder of what the no-bullshit consequences are when diplomacy fails, and when leaders are the spore of world views that precipitate intolerance, conflict, and eventually extremism.
Besides the big complexities; I’ll try to illustrate a couple more particular details. First, in Sulaymaniyah, shopkeepers leave things outside when they close up, and sometimes cover their storefront with a curtain rather than locking away their things, which I presume is because they’re putting their trust in each other in a way that’s foreign to me. Secondly, folks in Kurdistan were so constantly kind in a disproportionate way to what I was able to offer them by being there. Witnessing those kind of expressions was humbling to say the least. It’s left me with a lot to think about as I sit here at home writing you on this warm summer day in Michigan.
Anyways, feeling grateful I was able to find a way to have a bit of first-hand experience, and looking forward to going back to the Middle East in the future.
