apr 20, 2003 - Looting Ministry of Culture - lost archive
Description:
several thousand negatives from those that went up in smoke in 2003 during the looting of the Iraqi Ministry of Culture when Saddam Hussein fell.
This is deeply painful. I know how they took it, drawer by drawer, thousands of negatives: journalistic, artistic, daily life, public figures, historical sites, everything. It was Iraq, from north to south. Thousands and thousands of images were lost, if not hundreds of thousands. There was so much of my work in that archive. The last thing I heard was that the negatives were being sold in flea markets here, as random objects for 25 dinar each. The mob that attacked all the government offices did this. I also believe that specific people wanted this and made sure to get it.My own archive is a small comfort in the face of this.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/apr/20/internationaleducationnews.iraq
Added to timeline:
Timelines Iraq & Latif al Ani
Date:
