by Emily Ramnauth
Shayan Shahir Nuradeen’s painting, Fatima’s Dreams (2024), captivates viewers with its bold colour palette and abstract style. The painting depicts Fatima as a sleeping figure draped in a flowing crimson hijab, resting upon the hills. This piece is a part of Nuradeen’s exhibition ENOUGH, which amplifies the voices of Iraqi children affected by violence, allowing their stories to be heard through art. This works to combat erasure by sharing the experiences of internally displaced people (IDPs) in Iraq. While at the same time, Fatima herself demonstrates hope and strength despite the violence that surrounds her.
Understanding Fatima and her family’s story is crucial to appreciate the depth and resistance embedded in this piece. Fatima’s home was destroyed by a bomb, injuring her parents, and killing her sister. In the painting, a flower covers Fatima’s eye, symbolizing the injury this attack left on her – the loss of vision in her left eye. Her sleeping posture and closed eyes represent her hope of returning to her home in Salah al-Din and receiving surgery to restore her vision. Fatima’s dreams are a powerful form of resistance, they represent the resilience and determination it takes to have the strength to look beyond the current situation and believe in the possibility of a better future. Envisioning such a future is essential to achieving liberation because it inspires and sustains the drive for justice. Fatima’s Dreams also provides a counter-narrative to the destruction and despair that often define the lives of IDPs.
The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the rise of the so-called Islamic State in 2014 are responsible for the mass displacement in Iraq (Sakai & Marfleet 2020). These conflicts forced countless individuals to leave their homes and move into camps where they live in unsafe conditions (“Needs of Internally Displaced Women“). Statistics from a 2022 UN Refugee Agency report highlight the magnitude of the crisis:
- “Refugees and asylum-seekers in neighbouring countries: 224,300;
- IDPs: 1.2 million;
- IDP returnees: 5.0 million (including 30,100 in 2022 alone);
- Stateless persons: 47,100” (“Iraq Situation“).
While these numbers are undoubtedly staggering, relying solely on quantitative representation can oversimplify the experiences of IDPs. As Mollie Blackburn notes, dehumanization occurs when individuals are “made less human by having their individuality, creativity, and humanity taken away, as when one is treated like a number or an object” (qtd. in Vehabovic 2020). Although documentation is necessary, numbers fail to capture the lived realities behind the data. Nuradeen’s painting actively resists this process of dehumanization by restoring individuality to Fatima and her family, she reminds us that every IDP has an important story to tell. Hearing even one story such as Fatima’s transforms the elusive figure of “one million” into something much more tangible. This painting allows the viewer to empathize and understand that harm to a single life alone is tragic.
These representations are important because they give a platform to marginalized voices which ultimately raises awareness to reduce harm. Nuradeen’s powerful piece not only provides a platform to showcase Fatima’s and other Iraqi children’s resilience but also serves to humanize IDPs who are more than just a number.
WGS340 WOMEN & REVOLUTION IN THE MIDDLE EAST 