Basil Al-Rawi - Building a House of Memory: Expanding Iraqi Archive Photos with Oral History and VR

Building a House of Memory: Expanding Iraqi Archive Photos with Oral History and VR

House of Memory developed during Basil Al-Rawi’s practice-based PhD at the Glasgow  School of Art. The VR work derives from photographs and narratives contributed by Iraqi  diaspora to the Iraq Photo Archive, an online platform created by the artist to gather personal  archive photographs and associated memories. Participants were invited to take part in a  filmed conversation about their memory of the photographic moment, giving voice to  intangible and visually unrepresented elements. This material was creatively remediated into a  digitally constructed memoryscape, which expands the photographic moment into an  immersive temporal environment inhabited by the voices of the Iraqi diaspora participants.  The ongoing project demonstrates a methodology for using VR to activate touchstones of  memory and communicate individual narratives to wider communities. It is concerned with  building collective community histories and counter narratives, forming wider understanding  of authentic Iraqi stories, and challenging the dominant representation of Iraq across different  media.

Bio: Irish-Iraqi multidisciplinary artist and researcher working with photography, film, and  immersive technologies to explore memory, identity, and politics. He reconstructs archival  material to form virtual bonds with the past and create expanded photographic moments.  Recent PhD graduate from The Glasgow School of Art and founder of the Iraq Photo Archive.

Presented as part of 'Photography in Virtual Culture', a two day conference in May 2024 to develop a communal discussion, and inform critiques and thinking on the making of ‘virtual photography’. Organised by the University of Westminster and The Photographers' Gallery.