The Iraqi Children's Art Exchange Project

The Iraqi Children's Art Exchange Project is an active and evolving collection of photographs and children's art from Iraq and the USA. The two core exhibits resulted from my trips to Baghdad -- in 2001, "A Friendly Bond, A Joyful Connection: A Child-To-Child Art Exchange Between Children in Iraq and Children in the USA"; and in 2004, "Rasmiya's Ring: Photographs and Children's Art from Baghdad".

The exhibits are meant to put a human face on ordinary people -- especially women and children -- living in Iraq under the US-sponsored UN Sanctions (1991-2003) and during the current war and occupation. The primary focus of both of my trips was the children's cancer ward in Al-Mansour Pediatric Hospital in Baghdad, but the project includes art work collected, and photos taken at Al- Gazolia Refuge Camp and other locations in the city as well.

The material in the project collection is flexible in that it can be configured according to the physical space and the particular focus of the sponsoring group or facility. The exhibits have been displayed in schools, libraries, and offices as well as at conferences and in art galleries.

	2001: A Friendly Bond/A Joyful Connection A Child-To-Child Art Exchange Between Children in Iraq and Children in the USA
	2004: Rasmiya's Ring Photographs and Children's Art from Baghdad

How to Borrow the Art Project Exhibits

About Claudia Lefko

Claudia in her element

I'm a preschool teacher, and long-time activist and advocate for children in Iraq. I've been to Iraq twice: once in January, 2001 and then again in January 2004.

I'm a member of The Northampton Committee to Stop the War in Iraq. Every Saturday for six years now, we have stood for one hour in front of the courthouse on Main St. to bring attention to the humanitarian crisis in Iraq. From the beginning, our focus has been on people and the human costs of US policy in Iraq.

Six years ago, I was like most Americans. I didn't know very much about Iraq or Iraqis. I didn't pay that much attention to the first Gulf War and was more-or-less oblivious about UN Sanctions until the mid-90s. I became involved when I started hearing the UNICEF statistics about the level of illness, suffering and death of children in Iraq: 5-7,000 children were dying every month under UN sanctions.

Ordinary Iraqis don't appear in our media -- in print or on radio or TV. We don't see them and we don't hear about them, so most Americans know only two things about Iraq: it was ruled by Saddam Hussein, and the country is rich in oil. They don't know that the "cradle of civilization" where writing, literature and astronomy first emerged, is located in Iraq. And, the ancient and beautiful city of Babylon is there.

The war has obviously brought a lot of attention to Iraq -- but not necessarily to its history, culture or people. The country is portrayed as a kind of blank slate, a playing field for the war -- inhabited...not by men, women and children trying to live their lives, but rather by a group collectively known as "the enemy".

Both times I traveled to Iraq, I went with the idea of carrying out projects that would put the faces, voices and culture of Iraqis in front of the American public...thus the photographs and children's art work.

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