By Layla Al-Dulaimi ~
Deep in the heart of Baghdad, a short few blocks from the ancient banks of the Tigris River, revolution is taking place quietly—not on guns but on paintbrushes, video recorded on cell phones, and electric guitars. Iraq’s new crop of creative leaders are spearheading a culture renaissance that has turned the page on a nation that was about to go to war.
“Art brings us hope and weeps with us together,” explains 26-year-old Mosul painter Basma Alwan. “We were shut up for years. Today we are screaming with color, with rhythm, with movement.”
Rebuilding Identity Through Art
Already endowed with cultural institutions of latency or leveling now are inviting local initiative and global patrons. The Iraqi Ministry of Culture now supports community initiatives for the preservation of cultural heritage via innovation. Institutions such as the Ruya Foundation ¹ are in the meantime opening up to new talent, opening Iraqi contemporary art up to the global world.
In Mosul-once ISIS-held–the murals are starting to explode onto bomb-out facades. One, “Art Revolution,” employs local youth to blanket the battered neighborhoods in giant-sized artworks and a culture of peace. “This is more than beautification,” program director Omar Al-Jibouri says. “It’s reclamation.”
The New Sound of Iraq
And as Iraqi visual arts get a second wind, Iraqi music does too. Maqam in its original form mixed with contemporary styles like hip-hop and indie rock has brought back to life the voice of Iraq. New voices today are a new generation of musicians on YouTube and Spotify and sing at home and abroad.
The Basra Music Festival, which began in 2022, is an excellent example of this outreach music. “It’s a moment of bridge between past and future,” declares founder Reem Al-Khafaji. “We are celebrating the oud, but we are summoning the synthesizer as well.”
The recent move by the UNESCO ResiliArt Movement ² has also introduced greater funding and training to Baghdad and Erbil-based musicians and artists, thus saving their music and recording it professionally.
Cinema as a Tool for Memory
Iraqi films, once excluded by censorship and inadequate budgets, now are becoming trendy family names globally. Movies Mosul 980 and Haifa Street became viral and received widespread praises and have powerful survival and resilience themes.
These schools, like the Independent Film & Television College of Baghdad ³, are training a new generation of filmmakers — writers, directors, and editors — and among them are a respectable number of women. “We don’t make movies just to make movies; we hold on to our truth,” Khalid says, a 24-year-old director from Kirkuk.
Internet streaming websites are lifelines for solo artists, cutting out the decades-old system of distribution and allowing artists to interact with their public face-to-face.
Spaces of Expression and Healing
Coffee shops, art galleries, and community centers are opening everywhere in Iraq, where to be heard, to dream, to be seen. In Erbil, the Tarkib Baghdad Contemporary Arts Institute ⁴ offers workshops, galleries, and open-mic readings that draw teenagers of all religion and ethnicity.
These spaces provide not only artistic opportunity but psychological refuge. Many participants describe the act of creating as a path to healing from trauma. “Our canvases carry the weight of what we’ve endured—and our dreams of what’s next,” says Sarmad, a 21-year-old graffiti artist in Najaf.
A Renaissance in Real Time
Iraq’s renaissance continues. It is hard, awkward, and sometimes dangerous—but it’s true. It is the credo of a time not to be mired in hysteria but to envision, to create, to build.
The world is finally waking up. The Culture and Conflict programme of the British Council ⁵ now provides space for constructive cross-cultural engagement between Iraqi artists and artists worldwide, placing these voices on the global map.
With Iraq once more reeling from political and economic collapse, its fresh cultural renaissance is a testament that rehabilitation isn’t all about freeway systems. It’s about identity, imagination, and the struggle to locate beauty amid devastation.
And if Iraq’s artists have their way, the next chapter in Iraq will be written not in terms of headline news of crisis in the papers but in colours, lines, and harmonies.
Sources:
[1] Ruya Foundation – https://ruyafoundation.org/
[2] UNESCO ResiliArt Movement – https://en.unesco.org/resiliart
[3] Independent Film & Television College Baghdad – http://iftcbaghdad.org/
[4] Tarkib Baghdad Contemporary Arts Institute – https://tarkibartsculture.org/
[5] British Council: Culture and Conflict – https://www.britishcouncil.org/programmes/culture-and-conflict
