“As a child I would often draw human figures, landscapes, animals and tanks. Anything I would find around myself. I would do it as any other kid going to the public school. But at home I was told that it is not a right thing to make images of living creatures as it is a work of God, not of the human being. It is so because the one who gives the shape of the being is obliged to give it a soul in the next life.”
“However, by drawing a line against the neck of the represented one can announce to God that he invalidates the image and is not claiming a position of the creator.”
“Today, as someone dealing professionally with representation I return to this moment in my childhood and undertake the gesture of invalidation, by crossing the neck of any represented figure with the red line. In a way it refers to the common telling that the photographer is the one who steals the soul of the photographed.” -Jamal Penjweny
Photos courtesy of Jamal Penjweny. Go HERE to browse more of his work throughout Iraq.
