Thxsdad - ONLINE PERSONA

Layla Al Attar (1942-1993) was one of Iraq’s most respected and influential painters in the 1970s and 80s. Layla was murdered alongside her husband by a U.S Missile attack that targeted the house she resided in, which was her sister Suad’s house, and several other civilian homes in her neighbourhood in Baghdad in 1993. Although the attack was considered to be accidental, many people believe the real reason behind the air-strike was due to one of her provocative pieces; which was a mosaic portrait of George H. W. Bush on the floor of the main entrance of Al Rasheed Hotel with the phrase “Bush is Criminal“ written beneath it.

The attack was ordered by Bill Clinton in retaliation for an attempted assassination on Bush in Kuwait in 1993. Most recently however, such claims of a targeted attack on Layla’s residence have been refuted by several members close to Layla’s family due to the simplicity of the thought and the improbability of a powerful government targeting a simple artist. This has also been refuted because according to several resources Layla didn’t create that mosaic of Bush, but she was rather a manager at the Arts Institute that commissioned an artist from Diyala/Baqubah to create it.

The details of Layla’s and her husband’s death might never be known, but one thing that should be realized from this event is the amount of disrespect and abasement the American administration had and continues to have until this day to the lives of Iraqis.

India, Delhi, 1972. People sleeping near the Red Fort, by Ferdinando Scianna.  

travel companions

on growing up

unknown / Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente /  Dream house I by Shanice Bloodbloom / unknown / First love/Late spring - Mitski / Liana Finck / Vacation - Florist / Corinne Hartley / You Don’t Have to Like Me by Alida Nugent / unknown 

OH, THE PLACES WE WILL GO

THE THINGS WE WILL SEE

THE PEOPLE WE WILL MEET

"Do not destroy the landscape!" (Soviet Union, Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, 1980s)

holding hands

raised hands of great finesse, kom ombo temple - egypt // holding hands, persepolis - iran // egyptian colossal of ramesses II and the goddess sekhmet // temple of horus at edfu

Freya by Sheena Norquay

quilting

In Norse mythology Freya is a goddess associated with love, sex, fertility, spells and war. She rides a chariot pulled by two cats, is accompanied by the boar Hildisvini, and wears a cloak of falcon feathers.

Родина | Motherland;

Anatoly Zubtsov, 1959.

Green explotion