New Substack News // Letter

 

Melissa on the Road - Spring News // Letter

20 years of Iraq at War - Celebrating activism in art

 Dear friends,

I hope, as usual, that this post finds you well !

First, in order to make sure you only receive these "news // letters" if you want to, I'm now moving them to Substack, for free (obviously!), so you can subscribe or pass... 

I still intend to post 4 to 6 times a year, about my writing, some travels, new discoveries, journalism, and issues that seem inspiring, insightful or thought-provoking, still with the spirit of sharing and connecting. 

Here is the link to the Substack newsletter: 

https://melissa.substack.com/

Thanks for reading so far !!

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Iraq, 20 years after the start of the war in March 2003

From July 2022, I've been thinking about the coming 20 years since the start of the war in Iraq. In March 2003, the Anglo-American military coalition decided to invade the country, with the consequences we know.

In a previous post on my blog, I also explained the link between my research on music history and politics, my book on Bristol, and my recent work for a couple of reviews and websites. Read the most recent here: 2003-2023. 

As I wrote in this post, I went to the US for a short stay at Northwestern University's Journalism school, as the war was starting, in April 2003. 

In April 2016, I also travelled to Iraq Kurdistan, while finishing the French version of my book, working for a charity helping women and displaced people on the ground. 

More on this here: Iraq: Action in Kurdistan and Nineveh for IPDs. 

This year, I wanted to focus on the artists who opposed the war and worked to support the Iraqi people, in the UK & in Iraq:

'The UK-based artists memorialising Iraqi national sacrifice' 

- For the New Arab - read here:

https://www.newarab.com/features/uk-based-artists-memorialising-iraqi-national-sacrifice

And our 'Iraq' issue

I also suggested to my co-contributing editors at the Markaz review to dedicate an issue on the country. 

Thanks to months of dedicated work on the issue, TMR 28 is also here !

My piece on Kurdish researcher and composer Hardi Kurda:

https://themarkaz.org/hardi-kurda-archiving-the-sounds-of-northern-iraq/

A piece I suggested, photos from my friend Susan Schulman:

https://themarkaz.org/dispossessed-by-climate-iraqi-refugees-in-their-own-country/

Read all the articles of the issue here:

https://themarkaz.org/review/

And finally, my review of American Iraqi artist Hayv Kahraman's last exhibition in London, last year 

https://themarkaz.org/artist-hayv-kahramans-gut-feelings-exhibition-reviewed/

Writing on other great artists & social change

Photo by myself - Arnolfini, Jan. 2016

On filmmaker and art agitator John Akomfrah:

https://melissa-on-the-road.blogspot.com/2023/01/congratulations-john-akomfrah-who-will.html

Interview with the legendary graffiti artist Mode 2, 

at the 'Beyond The Streets' exhibition in London!

Read here: 

https://upmag.com/mode-2/

On the work of the American, feminist, and progressive portrait painter Alice Neel

https://www.readersdigest.co.uk/author/melissa-chemam

With Jerusalem-bord, Jaffa-based artist and 

archives researcher Dor Guez

https://www.newarab.com/features/dor-guez-frames-intimate-portrait-palestinian-pluralities

And more soon about:

 French Algerian film artist Katia Kameli...

 ...Currently exhibited in Paris at ICI (18e).

And Zanele Muholi at Maison Européenne 

de la Photographie, Paris (4e arr.)

http://melissa-on-the-road.blogspot.com/2023/02/zaneli-muholi-in-paris.html

My Music Column on the SWANA region

A piece on the history of Raï, with Hadj Seemer

https://themarkaz.org/a-new-series-in-france-rai-is-not-dead-celebrates-the-genre/

Interview with Haifa-born Berlin based 

singer-songwriter Rasha Nahas

https://themarkaz.org/berlin-based-palestinian-returns-to-arabic-in-new-amrat-album/

Finally : a coming talk
  

   

Conversation with the incredible Chile-born artist and activist Alfredo Jaar at the Goodman Gallery 

https://www.goodman-gallery.com/artists/alfredo-jaar#bio

Alfredo Jaar (b. 1956, Santiago, Chile) is an artist, architect, and filmmaker who considers social injustices and human suffering through thought-provoking installations. Throughout his career Jaar has used different mediums to create compelling work that examines the way we engage with, and represent humanitarian crises. He is known as one of the most uncompromising, compelling, and innovative artists working today.

RDV on Tuesday 18 April 2023, at 6pm,

at the Goodman Gallery, 26 Cork Street, London W1S 3ND

Read my first interview with him, from 2019, here:

https://whynow.co.uk/read/25-years-later-alfredo-jaar-at-goodman-gallery-london

More here soon:

https://www.goodman-gallery.com/artists/alfredo-jaar

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Since the start of the war in Ukraine, my faith in progressive ideas has been seriously shattered. And because I've been unwell, first in my mind, then in my body after catching Covid, carrying on writing has both been a blessing and a struggle. If you appreciate any of these pieces, please, feel free to let me know or share.

Thanks again everyone, and keep me posted on your news ! 

I wish you all the best.

with my very best wishes,

melissa 

20 years after the start of the war in Iraq: Artists still demand justice

 

As I previously wrote, 20 years after the start of the war in Iraq, in March 2003, I wanted to focus on the artists who opposed the war and worked to support the Iraqi people, in the UK & in Iraq.

So I wrote this piece: 'The UK-based artists memorialising Iraqi national sacrifice' - for The New Arab.

I talked to the brave Iraqi exilée artist Rana Ibrahim, the British Iranian filmmaker Amir Amirani, and  described the work of the British Iraqi painter Mohammed Sami, or my favourite artist, from Bristol.

Meet the UK-based creatives memorialising Iraqi sacrifice two decades after US-invasion

Culture - 7 min read 

Melissa Chemam 

16 March, 2023 

Two decades after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, showings of remorse toward the Iraqi people are few and far between. Given this governmental and legislative apathy, a new generation of UK artists has taken it upon themselves to expose truth to power.

“I graduated as an archaeologist in Baghdad”, Rana Ibrahim tells The New Arab, “and I worked there for 3 to 4 years before marrying my husband. In 2000, we travelled for his work. But then the war happened in 2003. I was 27 at the time. I watched it all from afar.”

It was a terrible shock for her, especially not to be able to go back to her home. As her husband has British citizenship, Rana decided to move to Britain later in 2003. 

“There, my brain blocked off from what was happening. The conflict meant a potential good life was impossible in Iraq, but I felt anger, watching the events on television was infuriating. I found myself losing my identity. I had to adapt to a new life, and a new language. I had learned English at school, as we do in Iraq, but still, it was very new to me. The war affected me and my family, my parents, and my sister. They still live there, where I also have all my friends and my memories. But I could hardly ever go back.”

Read the story here: 

https://www.newarab.com/features/uk-based-artists-memorialising-iraqi-national-sacrifice

Interview/Feature: Mode 2, and 40 years of street art!

 

When I started writing about Bristol, in 2014, I had been speaking to younger street artists, but my first interview with 3D was a game-changer. It's not known enough how pioneering his street art was at the time.

3D was as early in the scene in England as Goldie and Mode 2, who soon became his friends. Ever since, I've been willing to speak to the latter. Thanks to the Saatchi exhibition 'Beyond The Street', it's now done! 

Interview/Feature: Mode 2

Beyond the Streets London: 40 Years of Mode 2

Written by Melissa Chemam

It is not easy to meet Mode 2, let alone to convince him to be photographed. Like many graffiti artists, his real name remains secret. And at first, I imagined I would have to chase him for months for a quick exchange over email. But still, since I started writing about the history of European graffiti between Bristol, London and Paris in 2015, he was one of the artists I most wanted to interview.

(...)

Read the article here: https://upmag.com/mode-2/

On Iraq, Britain and the world today, via Bristol

 

Extract from my book on Massive Attack and their work to highlight the flawed foreign policy in Iraq, chapter 10 : 

Inspired by Japanese artist Tatsuo Miyajima, who used light installation and specifically light-emitting diode (LED) in his artworks, 3D co-designed with UVA a giant screen made of LED. It displayed pure data, statistics and factual details taken from the press about what was happening on the ground in Iraq – the death of civilians, Iraqi deaths, American death, the amount of oil being consumed, chemicals and weapons being found, as well as data from stock exchanges all around the world. All of these different facts and numbers were translated into local languages along the tour, including each time new input from local newspapers, to mix global with local information. A total of 36 languages was used over two years. 

Every night, the line counting the number of Weapons of Massive Destruction found in Iraq read “0”. Red and green lights alternatively dominated the screen, while the front stage remained in the dark. Progressively, 3D felt that the messages and exchanges of communication with the audience, able to send texts and emails to be displayed on the screen, brought a meaning to this dark period.

(...)

In an interview he gave in Naples, Italy, in September 2003, Robert defined his music not as “dark”, like most newspapers, but as mirroring our world. “The world in general is getting darker,” he stated. “With the amount of surveillance we’re under, the new American corporate century we’re about to enter, it’s a very frightening place. Media organisations are allowed to monopolise, they can own newspapers, radio and TV stations and all have political interests. It’s dangerous especially if you’re trying to put something out that’s not just a hair product, a T-shirt or a chocolate bar, you’re trying to do something creative. And that goes for writers, musicians, artists, filmmakers... It’s gonna get much, much harder. The whole idea of our music getting darker is ridiculous. The issue is the media in general. The media’s selling you a lifestyle, when the world is in a precarious position.

However, inspired by the city he was interviewed in and where his family is from, 3D started to get into this attitude to life that was enjoy it while it lasts. Like Southern Italians, living under the shadow of the Vesuvius and the fact that it could erupt unexpectedly. And he emerged from these difficulties with an enhanced instinct of living in the moment. A lesson hardly learned, in a few months that might very well be the hardest in his life, but also the most eloquent.

Read more from the book - you can buy it from: 

UK Bookshop (independent bookshops website!)

Waterstones

Tangent Books

Or, if you must, from Amazon. 

Massive Attack: Out Of The Comfort Zone 

Melissa Chemam

Author Melissa Chemam's in-depth study of the influences that led to the formation of the Wild Bunch and then Massive Attack looks into Bristol's past to explore how the city helped shape one of the most successful and innovative musical movements of the last 30 years.

Chemam gives a unique insight into Massive Attack - 3D, Daddy G and Mushroom - their influences, collaborations and politics and the way in which they opened the door for other Bristol musicians and artists including Banksy.

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A few more words...

The wars in Iraq bookend this story... From British colonial past to the 1991 Gulf War, that forced the band to stick to half of their name, Massive, for their first releases, then the 2003, that Robert Del Naja strictly opposed, was one of the rare British artists to protest against, and addressed in his shows directly thanks to his visual creativity with UVA (see more here).

Over the past four years, as a freelance journalist, I have been travelling between Bangui (Central African Republic), Paris, Istanbul, Calais, Erbil (Iraqi Kurdistan), the South of France and Ventimiglia in Italy, London and… Bristol. I have mostly been covering post-conflict issues and the refugee crisis for different European radio stations and magazines. 

So I went to Bristol to write about a brighter, engaging and inspirational story. To explore the culture of England’s West Country, retrace the history of my favourite music, a fascinating journey through an artistic and social explosion. 

I decided to write about the band Massive Attack when I read they were travelling to Lebanon, in July 2014. They were about to perform at the Byblos International Festival and to visit Palestinian youth they help, in a refugee camp in Burj El Barajneh, in the southern suburbs of Beirut. I contacted a friend who is a writer and music journalist to convince him I could write a book about them…

And sadly, the issues in the Middle East remain unsolved, and have spiralled to another war against Russia. For more on the links between the two and the American-British foreign policies, read this excellent article by Patrick Wintour, published by The Guardian on 13 March 2023. 

Iraq, 20 years of world disasters

 

 This should be the most important political discussion of our time...

My little contribution to the debate is not out yet, but the war started 20 years ago this month, and we're still enormously harmful everywhere.

This morning, a must read: 

Long shadow of US invasion of Iraq still looms over international order

Tell me, how does this end?’ asked US general David Petraeus during first push to Baghdad in 2003

by Patrick Wintour 
The Guardian's Diplomatic editor

The French statesman Georges Clemenceau once said: “War is a series of catastrophes that results in a victory.” In the case of the invasion of Iraq, however, the war that began 20 years ago started in victory and has ended in a series of catastrophes.

(...)

The breathtaking mishandling of the biggest attempt at liberal interventionism since Vietnam is now acknowledged by almost all those involved. 

Read here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/13/long-shadow-of-us-invasion-of-iraq-still-looms-over-international-order?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other 

Marta - 'When It's Going Wrong'

 

Marta - When It's Going Wrong Written by Marta and Tricky, produced by Tricky Full album out 31st March on False Idols Pre-order: http://falseidols.lnk.to/whenitsgoing... Video credits: Dir: Mateusz Miszczyński Dop: Jakub Stoszek Producer: Marianna Bociańska 1st AD: Mieszko Chomka Production Assistant: Michalina Korewicka Costumes: Maja Michnacka Make up: Marysia Kasia Najmoła Make up Assistant: Julia Potębska Gaffer: Mikołaj Komaniecki Bus Driver: Tomasz Łysakowski Cast: Jan Kwapisiewicz, Maria Kuśmierska, Michał Włodarczyk, Ignacy Martusewicz Stay tuned to False Idols for upcoming releases https://www.instagram.com/_false_idols_/ https://www.facebook.com/FalseIdolsRe... Marta https://www.facebook.com/martazlakowska https://www.instagram.com/marta_zlako... Tricky www.trickysite.com https://www.facebook.com/TrickyOfficial https://www.instagram.com/trickyoffic...

Lana Del Rey - 'A&W'

 

'Hold Me Down'

 

'Hold Me Down' · Nakhane

Hold Me Down · Nakhane Hold Me Down ℗ 2023 Star Red Music Ltd. under exclusive license to BMG Rights Management (France) SARL Released on: 2023-03-03 Producer: Nakhane Arranger, Producer, Guitars: Nile Rodgers Arranger, Drum Programmer, Producer, Keyboards, Sound Engineer: Max Hershenow Bass: Raphael Saadiq Vocals: 3D Sound Engineer: Russell Graham Sound Engineer: Eaun Dickinson Sound Engineer: John Congleton Sound Engineer: Adrian Hall Sound Engineer: Chab Arranger, Composer, Author: Nakhane Mahlakahlaka Composer: Max Hershenow Auto-generated by YouTube.

New collaboration for Ukraine

Giles Duley worked with Robert Del Naja in Ukraine on a new collaboration with Ukrainian musician Sviatoslav Vakarchuk, Legacy of War Foundation and United 24.

Released 03/02/23.

Zanele Muholi in Paris

 

At la Maison Européenne de la Photographie 

The exhibition opened early February, and last until the end of May.

Some of my favourite photos of her photos...