Shoot an Iraqi
Wafaa Bilal talked about his book Shoot an Iraqi: Art, Life and Resistance Under the Gun (City Lights Publishers; September 1, 2008). He tal… read more
Wafaa Bilal talked about his book Shoot an Iraqi: Art, Life and Resistance Under the Gun (City Lights Publishers; September 1, 2008). He talked about growing up in Iraq under rule of Saddam Hussein, his decision to move to the United States where he has lived since 1992, and the killing of his brother by a missile fired from a U.S. military drone in 2004. In reaction to his brother’s death, and inspired by a news article about a U.S. soldier in Colorado who remotely fired missiles in Iraq, in May 2007 Mr. Bilal created an interactive, month-long exhibit called “Domestic Tension” where he confined himself in a room in a Chicago art gallery and ate only food donated to him. He conversed with people from around the world in a chat room and allowed people, through a webcam, to shoot paintballs at him twenty-four hours a day. By the time the exhibit ended, Bilal had been shot at over 60,000 times by people in over 160 countries. He read passages from his book and responded to questions fr close
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