Sada [regroup]
2011 | Baghdad, Iraq
Live in Baghdad
Artist collective. Sada, which means “echo” in Arabic, was devised by Iraqi artist Rijin Sahakian in 2011 to support Baghdad-based artists facing the damage done to Iraq's art and education infrastructure following cycles of war, sanctions, occupations and continued political insecurity. From a rented classroom on the bank of a river to a studio run by the artists themselves, participants gathered and participated in an education program and production of seminars, discussions and workshops, virtually and in person, creating support networks during this period that transformed living conditions in the country. In 2015, the collective officially ended its activities. In 2022, Sajjad Abbas, Bassim Al Shaker, Ali Eyal, Sarah Munaf and Rijin Sahakian regrouped as Sada [regroup] to make an anthology video, featured in the documenta 15, Kassel, Germany (2022). They live in Baghdad.
Sada [regroup], 2023
Video, 54'
The work brings together five short films in an anthology of the group's production from the first Gulf War in 1991 to the present day, presenting a complex panorama on the importance of art as a means of expression and protest in contemporary Baghdad. Sajjad Abbas shows artists on guerrilla missions, graffitiing the urban fabric with their anonymous testimony to the everyday violence against the people of Iraq. Ali Eyal composes an intimate and poetic account of the meaning of art in times of war, while Sarah Munaf adopts an ironic, diary tone to comment on the impact new media are having on life and the field of art. Bassim Al Shaker intercalates real images and delicately rendered animation to deal with the trauma of violence and torture. In her own film-essay, Rijin Sahakian asks why she encouraged the group to produce videos at a time when Iraq was becoming the theater of one of the most televised wars in history and a lab for new image technologies that have come to determine the way we live our lives.