Research Project: The Cultural Agenda of Baghdad

Arthub Asia has supported the research travels of this exciting project. As the third phase of The Cultural Agenda of Baghdad is now concluded, we are happy to disseminate this information.

In 2002, Atelier Veldwerk started the project The Cultural Agenda of Baghdad; the project includes a series of ‘agendas’ that each chart a month in the cultural life of the city. Physically hard to compile these ‘agendas,’ we open up the responsibility to both a western and middle eastern audience the endurance and determination of Iraqi’s to maintain cultural engagement.

Please help in informing us by sending your programs, ideas and rumors about performances, concerts, lectures, exhibitions, cinema, readings and sub-cultural activities. Or send us the details of people who are involved in such cultural production. You can mail us at: info@baghdadout.info in Arabic or any language, but preferably in English, French, German or Dutch. Your information will be published in different magazines and newspapers in Europe and the Arab world, in both English and Arab. We thank you greatly in advance!

Next to the agenda you’ll find on this site the research section. Here we try to list and investigate the cultural consequences and developments regarding (post)war conditions. Files on different issues are set up and expanded upon regularly.
 The research phase of the latest agenda started with a visit in October 2009, to the Syrian capital Damascus, and to  Beirut, Lebanon, to meet Iraqi artists living there in exile. There we discussed the concept of the agenda. In February 2010, we visited Caïro (Egypt) with the same purpose and discussed these issues with many Iraqi artists living in or visiting Caïro.

The team working on the 3rd edition of Baghdad Out:
Atelier Veldwerk (Onno Dirker, Rudy Luijters), Salah Hassan, Sudad Shalan, Oday Al-Ubaydi, Salam Djaaz, Ahmed Fadaam

This project is supported by:
 The Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture and the FBKVB website (Fonds voor Beeldende Kunst, Bouwkunst en Vormgeving).