Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin

Oliver Chanarin and Adam Broomberg have photographed graffiti and traces found on the walls of “Red Bastille”. The location, situated 330 kilometres from Baghdad in the town of Sulaymaniyah (Iraqi Kurdistan), was the home of the prison and torture centre of the Baas party. For many Kurd prisoners, the walls of their cells were their only means of expression. Figurative or abstract, acts of resistance or imaginary creations, these graffiti evoke above all solitude, fear, boredom, and waiting. They refer to the suffering of imprisoned individuals under terrible conditions of Saddam Hussein’s regime.